Warning: spoilers!

The rollercoaster that was 2020 is every wannabe director’s dream. Already it has provided enough content for dozens of films about the nature of humanity, our own mortality and how best to bake Sourdough. It practically begs for some bright young e-boy to come along, interpret our experiences of viral TikTok trends and crippling loneliness, and then sell it back to us in a perfectly-packaged 120 minutes of warm-hearted, two-dimensional action that attempts to make the four months of lockdown seem worthwhile.

Quarantine (2021), written and produced by one man, is (perhaps) that film.

The script was written entirely during lockdown, presumably at the point at which the writer forgot what human interaction was. You can picture the mind that created it if you imagine Balzac, the incredible father of social realism, having been trapped with nothing but his younger siblings and a tie-dye kit for four months. His extensive novels might have been reduced to a similarly two-dimensional Netflix Original.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, the director himself stated this desire for the film to have a ‘realist’ feel, and thus he carefully crafted it to soften the heart of every lonely, touch-starved individual on the planet. Whether you braved quarantine alone, or discovered that your partner’s “work breaks” involve Instagram and a pack and a half of Doritos (no judgement here), this film remains far too close to reality.

"Low expectations, low delivery. Bearable with snacks and masturbation. The perfect epitome of quarantine, I'd say. The film of 2020. 4.5/5"

The plot juggles three narrative strands to hook the audience; we focus on three flats during the height of lockdown. In the opening sequence, we’re introduced to a motley cast of characters that are experiencing the worst of themselves. It’s the time of one daily walk, where people are caving to the sourdough bread trend left and right, and the police are employing drones somewhere in the Midlands. In a word, chaos.

We first meet Gail and Jason, a couple who are juggling Zoom calls, the amazing drinking weather, and their six-year-old daughter, Becky. They’re also slowly being driven mad by the viral dances that Becky feels the need to practise at all hours of the day and night. Jason has attempted to limit her phone usage after finding himself trying to throw it back while shaving. Gail supports this, after Becky left her holding a glass above her against the ceiling with a broom and no way of escape for two hours. Old, and yet classic.

Next, we meet two sisters, Indie and Insta. They’re living together after Indie’s messy break-up with indeterminate while male Chad (or Brad, or … Lad, or something). We first see them attempting to take their full-length mirror down the stairs to the communal garden out front; the scene blends a commentary on the lengths we go to for our online audience with that hilarious ‘pivot’ scene in Friends. One has a tie-dyed t-shirt, another has badly bleached hair.

In the next flat across is a lonely, out-of-luck man with a strong jawline, the Timothée Chalamet-type for the woman in her mid-30s. The actor brings little personality to the role, which works perfectly. The usual long shots of the director are here replaced with close ups to allow us to share in the emotion, such as in the heartbreaking moment where he finally breaks, whipping his coffee with a tiny, tiny whisk.

The three stories are woven together, giving us an insight into neighbourly relations, and what that means at this fraught time. During the climax, Jason calls the police on fake-Timothée for having friends round and hoarding flour (which, thankfully, just turns out to be the cocaine he’s trying to shift). The score connects the scenes together, and the constant focus on these three flats emphasises the human-interest aspect. The use of monotonous voice-over gives us insight that is often lacking from other genres; the way in which various characters judge all their neighbours’ noise take us right back to lockdown with uncanny ease. Or maybe that’s just me.

This film is relatively entertaining, in contrast to the mind-numbing nature of lockdown. It embraces all the glorious clichés we’d expect from a relative newcomer to the film industry, depicting our quarantined lives as shallow, vaguely vindictive, rising at times to anger and frustration at the headlines. Has anything ever been so accurate?

The director seals Quarantine’s fate as the ultimate film of 2020 with a title scene where he dedicates it to all the key workers, asking them to remember how supported they were during this difficult time in the years to come. Bold words indeed, driven home by the finale, where everyone is clapping on their balconies. He follows it with a link to his Patreon. I just hope, for the sake of those attending the screening and meeting the man behind it all, that being closer than 2 metres to a stranger is still a chargeable offence.

Low expectations, low delivery. Bearable with snacks and masturbation. The perfect epitome of quarantine, I'd say. The film of 2020. 4.5/5.