Doc Corner: David France's 'How to Survive a Pandemic'

By Glenn Dunks

Documentaries about the COVID-19 pandemic aren’t rare. Just over two years into it, and already a long list of titles exist claiming to offer us insight into some area of the response. Some have worked (Nanfu Wang’s In The Same Breath, Hao Wu and Weixi Chen’s 76 Days—both shortlisted for the Oscar) while others haven’t delivered where you would expect. They have been sometimes rushed, likely out of sheer determination to be completed in time for relevance, little knowing just how deep we would be without a clear exit. Because of this reason, many are dated by the time we get to see them.

How to Survive a Pandemic is unfortunately more of the latter. The film is something of a curiosity for its director David France. Curious because despite having the weight of timeliness on its side, Pandemic lacks the propulsive immediacy of his earlier films How to Survive a Plague and Welcome to Chechnya.

France’s film ostensibly charts the development of COVID-19 vaccines. A worthy subject and no doubt a great story for a film, but likely out of access issues as well as privacy, we don’t see all that much of the real backstage story. We do get a lot of meeting rooms and work-from-home conference calls, plus some at times quite informative information about how the disease works. But France and his editors Adam Evans and Tyler H. Walk divide their time too much between competing manufacturers and interview subjects to really find a narrative that sticks dramatically.

The film’s bifurcated approach spins off a little over the midway point to become about the vaccination roll-out more broadly. This is the stronger section of the movie almost by default as it builds on the story’s natural dramatic tension and adds layers of corporate greed, political hypocrisy and societal division. In maybe the film’s most interesting segment, we watch a community program attempt to convince a neighbourhood predominantly made up of African Americans and the less fortunate to get vaccinated and the issues this arouses. Again, we’re not shown enough because, like in one scene, we need to see a anti-vax protest. France doesn’t interrogate this at all, it’s just there.

Which is indicative of much of the movie. One suspects that it lacks the insights that could have come years or even decades after the fact. Of course, the spectre of AIDS lingers over How to Survive a Pandemic. And if ever a director was well situated to bridge the two subjects it was David France. Yet despite the parallels that were obvious to many from the earliest days of the pandemic, France does little with them. It’s disappointing for all of the reasons you may expect. And probably others, too.

It seemed odd as I watched it, seeing close-ups of books about the subject and interview subjects who’ve worked in AIDS research, yet I suppose it doesn’t find a natural avenue with which to truly investigate it. Maybe one day we will get the angrier film I expected and so, for now, we are left with a movie that hops around across its two-year timeframe speaking to interesting people doing incredible things and yet it never pops.

The power of the film then lies then in all of those people of medicine and science who (across a variety of corporations) did indeed work ridiculously hard to produce a vaccine in record time. It is unlikely that anybody watching will need to be told twice to get vaccinated, boosted, and boosted again. Which only makes France’s narrative choices all the more frustrating. There’s little that feels unique to him in How to Survive a Pandemic. It’s got a great message and its story is one we should all know, but rarely rises above the fray at a time when many viewers will likely be burnt out on its subject.

Release: Currently streaming on HBO Max.

Awards chances: A likely Emmy play instead of Oscar. I have no doubt there’ll be others like it. They liked 76 Days, so there is precedent for perhaps the Exceptional Merit category is where it may land. If it’s an Oscar play, I don’t see it reaching as far as Chechnya (shortlist) or Plague (nominated).