Movie Review--Songbird

"Only a handful of us, like you and me, we're allowed to roam around as we like.  You want a new car?  Just go to the dealership and drive it off.  Go into a house up in the hills and just take over.  We're untouchable.  You see, munies . . . we're not human anymore.  We're gods.  And how do you use your godly power?"

--Emmett Harland, Songbird

Unsurprisingly, Michael Bay would be exactly the kind of person to very suddenly produce a film about a dystopian future with COVID-23 ravaging America, concentration camp-like quarantine zones, and people with significant power who assume that anyone in an area with a reported case of the virus is also infected.  Songbird is ultimately far better at showing a disastrous outcome that both conservatives and liberals would despise (the former for the tyranny of the government activity and the latter for the probable lack of caution that led to an even worse strain of the virus) than it is at telling a story that goes beyond providing supposed shock value.  Regular temperature checks where all fevers are assumed to be related to COVID-23 and everyone living near an infected person is treated as infected keep new people entering Q-zones, mass quarantine sites from which no one is said to return.  This is a movie for which only the seriousness of the concept surpasses the general mediocrity of the execution.

Production Values

Realistic sets do fortunately take precedence over digital effects, which are almost completely unnecessary for a movie like this as it is.  The very limited locations--after all, the setting of many scenes is an absolute lockdown people are shot or abducted for if caught defying it--often lead to a very limited story.  Yes, the movie does actually do a fair job at showing scenarios that get the story from one scene to the next despite the focus on the lockdown, but not even all of its characters needed to be present.  When it comes to the characters, the best performance is clearly given by lead character KJ Apa.  Most of the movie falls on his shoulders since so many other characters are secondary or barely seen at all.  In fact, even Alexandra Daddario's character is in no way a needed inclusion.  She is at her best when simply connecting with a streaming fan, a scene which is not necessary to establish how technology binds people together in this world thanks to the scenes with the characters of KJ Appa and Sofia Carson, with her character having a trivial impact on the overall plot.  Demi Moore and Peter Stormare are some of the other cast members that at least put some effort into their performances.  In particular, Stormare is perhaps the best cast member besides KJ Apa as far as acting out his role is concerned.  It is just that even his role could have been deeper in a movie with better emphasis on its core themes and characters.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

A courier named Nico who bikes items to rich clients has known a young woman living under lockdown in an apartment, whose name is Sara and whom he is in a romantic relationship with, for some time.  Though she stays indoors with her grandmother, Nico is immune to the virus, hence why he is authorized to travel around in a future version of Los Angeles.  Suddenly, Sara's grandmother contracts COVID-23, exposing her to both a virus she has tried to avoid for four years and to the interests of a group that takes even suspected or potential victims of the virus to forced quarantine camps.  The couple plans to obtain special bracelets programmed to identify the wearer as immune to COVID-23 as they face obstacles from the head of a government branch who craves his freedom and power to do as he pleases, being both immune himself and a government worker.

Intellectual Content

Desperate for connection with other humans but seemingly in more danger than most people ever were from COVID-19, the characters of this fictionalized future rely on technology, as so many have before and during the pandemic, to see the faces and hear the speech of friends, lovers, family members, or clients.  Electronic technology saved the living population from the hellacious loneliness of having absolutely no way to safely contact each other in an even riskier world, but it is also a reminder of how physically distant people might be from each other--for years at a time.  Technology is also the means through which an assumption-driven governing class monitors the spread of the virus.  More than once, the head of "sanitation" in Los Angeles speaks of bringing every individual living with an infected person to camps or actually attempts to do so, using temperature checks through smartphones to aid his search for the infected.

The hysteria both major political factions might experience around this premise is, of course, rooted in exaggerated expectations in real life more than anything else.  It is logically possible for a government to either handle a special viral outbreak competently or incompetently.  Tyranny is not automatically present in either case, as philosophical competence avoids all tyranny and is compatible with pragmatic competence.  Nothing about the future presented in Songbird is inevitable.  Despite the fact that tyranny and an even worse strain of the coronavirus are not inescapable logical truths about the future, conservatives could easily panic watching Songbird's very intrusive and power-hungry antagonist Emmett Harland revel in his freedom to kill and relocate people at whim, just as liberals could easily panic at the thought of a more deadly version of the virus that could have been prevented if people had socially distanced themselves and taken other precautions earlier on.

Conclusion

Songbird would have certainly benefited from deeper characterization and perhaps fewer characters altogether.  If a main character has very limited screen time, does nothing for the plot or themes that another character does not already do, and could be removed without any major disruption of the core story, it is probably best to just omit the character.  The fact that there is little substance to Songbird beyond the relationship between Nico and Sara and the occasional burst of egoistic philosophy from the main antagonist is the great drawback which the smaller mistakes and failed opportunities rest under.  In spite of how it could have been a much deeper film relevant to where we are now with regards to the pandemic if it had not focused on a hypothetical and even improbable dystopia, the making of a movie about a controversial current event is not the problem.  The lackluster approach to the current event is the issue.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  In a handful of scenes, very mild physical attacks are shown.  The most graphic scene merely shows blood from a gunshot kill fly onto a car window.

 2.  Profanity:  "Bitch" and "shit" are used multiple times, while "fucking" is used once near the end.

  3.  Sexuality:  A man and woman briefly interact with each other in a sexual way onscreen, the woman wearing little.