By Glenn Dunks
There have been experimental Zoom horror movies on streaming services and there have been lockdown diaries where we get the news. Hell, Spike Lee’s New York, New York was ‘released’ so to speak on the filmmaker’s Instagram feed. But none feel quite as spontaneous and ambitious as Totally Under Control from directors Alex Gibney, Ophelia Harutyunyan, and Suzanne Hillinger. A feature-length documentary that takes its title from one of many Donald Trump quotes that should theoretically haunt him for years to come (if he was capable of shame or regret, that is) and which examines the United States’ response to the still very present COVID-19 pandemic and just what went wrong.
The finished product isn’t quite as much of a bombshell as its initial trailer drop just a week and a half ago might have suggested. The truth is, there’s very little in here that will be breaking news to anybody who has followed along closely (some of the Jared Kushner stuff had passed me by, though, amid the never-ending doom-news cycle that is 2020).
What it does do, however, is neatly pack five or so months of damning political fumbling and apathy into a single package. Presumably their hope is that it opens a few eyes of people whose attentions glazed over back in April and who perhaps in the lead-up to America’s presidential election in two weeks could use the wake-up call. There’s precedent for that, of course. Remember Michael Moore in TrumpLand? This wannabe October surprise of a film is much better than that, obviously. But if its attempts to get out ahead of November 3 mean it is merely very good as opposed to great? It’s probably still worth it.
Funnily enough, the way that Totally Under Control has come to exist is very typical of one of its makers. While Harutyunyan and Hillinger are first-time directors, Alex Gibney is a very prolific filmmaker. He often releases two or three movies a year alongside directing episodes of television and producing the work of others (he was an executive produce on Kingdom of Silence, which we reviewed just last week). If anybody were to somehow produce a film about COVID-19 while the world is still in the midst of outbreaks and lockdowns, it was probably going to be him. That economy doesn’t necessarily always serve him well with some titles having the air of unfocused determination. They are not rushed so much as they just occasionally lack the time and resonance required to fully bury down into the subject’s core. Perhaps best typified by last year’s The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicone Valley—great story, but I got no real sense there of what Gibney thinks beyond the fact that it makes one helluva story.
In Totally Under Control, it’s impossible to miss what he and his co-directors are trying to say. Even if they thought they were being subtle by not overtly politicising it (it's impossible not to be politicised, however). Although while they have had to think of their feet in terms of how to physically make a documentary that actively relies on interviews, there’s little here beyond stray shots of their elaborate set-up of protective sheets that would suggest any such need for adaptive filmmaking techniques. The film looks as polished as any contemporary film is likely to look, which probably says more about digital cameras these days than anything else. But beyond that, it’s edited well; its often dizzying onslaught of facts and anecdotes neatly arranged and captures the uniquely American way the pandemic spun from initial naïve innocence to out-of-control disaster.
The film definitely shows signs of being produced on the run. Normally the revelations heard in Bob Woodward’s tapes would be the jumping off point for an entire movie, but here they only rate a third act mention. Donald Trump’s own COVID-19 diagnosis merits an on-screen text coda (it admittedly was revealed a day after production was completed). It very nearly readies the film to be immediately out-of-date, although knowing Gibney, I am sure he is already making a sequel.
Remember the square dancing? I had forgotten the square dancing, but there it is. It’s all a part of the larger narrative that Gibney, Harutyunyan and Hillinger are telling here. A complete and utter failure of policy and an indictment of the Republican party’s ideological brand of freedom-fetish leadership. The film butts up against these deeper issues, perhaps holding off just a little bit more than it should. But then Totally Under Control also isn’t a film aiming for an activist uprising so much as it is trying to filter out the noise and present the facts as they see them. This film is foundational and a valuable resource should anybody claim ignorance to Trump’s failures of leadership. I don’t doubt that there are more fierce, angry, revolutionary documentaries to come—potentially from the three co-directors of this very film—and especially so about themes that the film only glances over (like healthcare, the disparity along race and class lines, and the rise of conspiracy theorists and anti-maskers) but as something pulled together during a global pandemic, there is a lot to admire in it.
And because the film’s most overtly political statement is right there in its release date: go vote!
Release: NEON have released this via on demand as of yesterday, and it will be on Hulu from the 20th. Australian readers can find it on Apple TV.
Oscar chances: I doubt it, unless the branch are feeling particularly angry and what to direct their attention to what will surely be the only film about the subject this year (I'm sure something will show up in documentary short subject). I suspect the film’s reward will be its inevitable popularity on streaming.