3+1 Short Paragraphs: I Think We're Alone Now

 2018, Reed Morano (The Rhythm Section) -- download

This one has been sitting in my downloads folder for ages, at least two years. It was constantly skipped over, in favour of the latest Big & Shiny, or a rewatch of something easily digested. I could probably do a '31 Days of...' of the rewatches I have consumed in 2020-21 in favour of seeing something new, or more importantly, something more challenging for my brain to consume. I should have, but we both know I won't, at least used the rewatches to make posts for movies I had not yet posted here. But is this blog about completism or just about writing when the whim hits. There are arguments in favour of both.

Even during these Plague Years, I am still drawn to plague fiction. Surprisingly, not much more (or less) than I am during non-Plague Years, as I was always drawn to plague fiction, especially, the apocalyptic kind. I Think We're Alone Now picks up after a world ending plague has stripped Del's (Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones) small town of life. But likely in order to do more than just survive, Del has given himself a mission, a routine, an activity that keeps him sane (?). He goes from house to house, wrapping and gathering the dead, cleaning their houses and collecting the pictures of their happy family lives. Eventually he buries the remains in a mass grave at he edge of town. He then returns to the library where he lives, heats a meal, opens a bottle of wine and eats in front of the large windows with a lovely view. A routine centered around finding a peace of sorts, I would think.

And then he finds Grace (Elle Fanning, Maleficent). Her car has crashed in(to) his small town. Not only is someone else alive, but someone from somewhere else, who has ended up in his small town. Unlikely, and not easily trusted. And she breaks his routine. At first Del is upset she is around, and then he learns to be upset that she might not be around. And then the movie derailed itself, using that oft suggested aspect of the third act, where you make things go wrong for the main character(s) and then you make things go REALLY wrong.

Grace is from a community on the west coast that gathered many who survived, and not being satisfied with being a pleasant, powered, thriving place of post-apocalyptic peace, they decided to mess with people's brains, so as to never return to the world that was all but destroyed. Its this wonky, out of place, stretch of the imagination danger for Del to deal with, so he can rescue Grace and the two can return to his small town. To do what? We don't know, but I imagine it has to do with cleaning more houses. Once the introspection of being the last man (and woman) on Earth was dispensed with, I had no idea, nor any desire to know where it was going to go.