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Review

Documentary 'Totally Under Control' Recounts Bungled Response To COVID-xix

A still from the documentary "Totally Under Control." (Courtesy NEON) — A however from the documentary "Totally Nether Command." (Courtesy NEON)

Since we don't accept social calendars anymore, a big part of my solar day has become deciding how much of it I am going to spend being terrified and sorry versus how long I'll allow myself to get so angry my ears bleed. I could probably do the latter 24/7 most days, but in the interest of cocky-intendance, I attempt to ration it out a chip. "Totally Under Control," the infuriating new documentary from directors Alex Gibney, Suzanne Hillinger and Ophelia Harutyunyan, is the kind of movie that really messes with your rage ratio. Shot in secret over the by few months and rushed into theaters (well, virtual ones anyway) alee of Election Day, it's a sober, step-past-step recounting of the Trump administration's catastrophically bungled response to COVID-19. There are no big revelations hither, the movie's mostly stuff nosotros already knew. Notwithstanding seeing it all laid out terminate-to-finish like this fabricated me and so furious I had to go walk it off for a little while.

Gibney and company begin the film by showing the safety protocols nether which it was shot, with some of the interviewees shipped hi-def cameras they operated themselves at domicile while others were spoken to from behind giant tents and shower defunction of PPE similar Elliott'due south house at the cease of "E.T." It'southward a striking contrast to the sequences filmed in South Korea with a regular crew, and a lot of the movie is structured as a comparison between the two nations' responses to the crunch. Both discovered their commencement patient on the same twenty-four hour period back in January. One country trusted their scientists and medical professionals to trace, rail and comprise the virus. The other bragged, blustered and massaged the markets. South korea lost 434 of its citizens to COVID-19 and life in that location has returned nearly to normal. We're at 215,000 dead with no end in sight.

"Totally Nether Control" covers a lot of the same ground every bit Frontline's fantabulous "The Virus: What Went Wrong?" which aired in June, and during certain segments, the timeline can feel a little hurried or incomplete. This sometimes happens with beginning drafts of history, cranked out after the news has already cleaved but without much perspective in the rearview. Where the motion picture excels, yet, is in the individual testimonies of its interview subjects, personalizing a crisis that'south as well often overwhelmed past numbers and statistics, importantly reminding usa that there are still decent people out there trying to do good, even as they're undercut every step of the mode by an incompetent and avaricious administration.

My heart went out to Dr. Rick Bright, erstwhile director of the Biomedical Advanced Inquiry and Development Authority who blew upwards his career and became the target of presidential harassment for opposing the assistants'southward snake oil salesmanship regarding hydroxychloroquine. Former Trump voter Michael Bowen is the executive vice president of America'southward leading manufacturer of N95 masks, who spent decades warning one administration after some other about an impending shortage, only to lookout the CDC simply modify their recommended guidelines to say masks weren't necessary when the crisis finally hit. "At some point, you've got to blame the manager," he says, providing the motion-picture show with its mantra.

Only by far the well-nigh staggering segment follows idealistic young Max Kennedy — RFK'due south grandson — volunteering to assistance Jared Kushner's supply chain task force. Turns out Max and a handful of other twenty-year-quondam novices were actually the entire task force, locked in a basement office all day surrounded by multiple TVs blaring Fox News, untrained and assigned to buy personal protective equipment using their own laptops and personal email accounts. The unabridged chunk of the film devoted to the PPE debacle is the well-nigh effective and infuriating, detailing how savvily these hucksters blamed federal failures on the individual states, collection up prices in bidding wars to benefit private companies and demanded humiliating acts of obeisance from local officials in exchange for life-saving supplies. Gov. Bakery makes a cameo via speakerphone, while the smirking president gloats to "Charlie" that he's never going to be outbid.

Information technology's a stomach-turning moment, but if anything I'one thousand surprised by how easy the movie otherwise takes it on Trump, possibly out of involvement in actualization "off-white and counterbalanced" to imaginary audiences that would never lookout man a movie like this anyway and probably jam their fingers in their ears and shout "FAKE NEWS!" if y'all even tried to tell them virtually it. "Totally Under Control" very clearly aspires to be a portrait of businessmen in over their heads whose free market solutions are woefully inadequate for a medical emergency. Withal the film leaves out some of the almost bizarre examples of this behavior, like Trump shoving aside scientists in favor of insane infomercial press conferences with CEOs like the My Pillow guy, or his hijacking of daily chore forcefulness briefings that culminated in his infamous inquiries most injecting disinfectants and shining UV light inside patients' bodies. But then I guess peradventure the filmmakers figured that if they tried to include every fourth dimension Donald Trump said something stupid the motion-picture show would be longer than "The Irishman."

The staggeringly prolific Gibney — this is the third movie he'south directed in 2020, with his 239-infinitesimal "Agents of Anarchy" having simply aired on HBO three weeks ago — gets a bad rap from a lot of folks I know in the documentary community for his factory-like output. Indeed, virtually of his movies aren't actually much more than the books or magazine articles they're based on read aloud with some slick animated graphics and an ominous, bleep-boop synth score. (I'k still baffled that his 2015 "Going Clear: Scientology & The Prison house of Belief" was hailed as a bombshell exposé while containing nothing I hadn't already read in The New Yorker several years before.)

Only he is very skilful at organizing data, and during a deafeningly noisy fourth dimension in American life when every mean solar day is an information blitzkrieg, sometimes it's refreshing to accept someone just lay out the facts clearly and in chronological lodge. "Totally Under Control" might not tell y'all anything yous don't already know, simply it does and so cogently and with pity. This is a film worth watching, even if you'll have to go walk around for a while afterward.

"Totally Nether Control" is now available on demand and at the Coolidge Corner Theatre Virtual Screening Room. The Coolidge will host a livestreamed Q&A with directors Alex Gibney, Suzanne Hillinger and Ophelia Harutyunyan on Wed, Oct. fourteen at 8 p.thousand. The film starts streaming on Hulu Fri, October. 20.