Alone Together

Year 15, Day 42 - 2/11/23 - Movie #4,343

BEFORE: I'm headed back to my theater job today, for the first time in about two weeks.  I enjoy working there, but during winter time the shifts are few and far-between, so there are less chances for me to make money - of course I can work my normal hours at the job that's driving me crazy, but where does that get me?  I don't even care what's screening, I just want to get out of the house, have a breakfast sandwich and a coffee, work a shift and do whatever needs to be done for the screening, reset the theater and go home feeling like I accomplished something, even if that something isn't much, it's something. I'll even get up early on a Saturday to do it, it's fine because I haven't been able to sleep late over these past few weeks, and I've never really had trouble sleeping before.  So that's how I know I'm stressed out and anxious most of the time. Too much uncertainty, too much weighing on my mind, from my boss' debt to my parents' health. 

Getting closer to the big romantic holiday now - it's time to kick this romance chain into high gear, maybe. It's been something of a slow build so far. Melissa Leo carries over from "Welcome to the Rileys". 

THE PLOT: Two strangers embroiled in bad relationships end up in the same upstate New York AirBnB at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

AFTER: Speaking of anxiety, remember the first few months of the pandemic?  When we were told to stay home from work, not leave our "bubble" of the family home and get all our groceries delivered so we could wipe them all down after they arrived?  That's the time period covered in this unlikely romance film, set in March and April of 2020.  What happens here is, anyone who could leave New York City left, headed for upstate or the Hamptons or even New Jersey if they could, because Queens, NYC - in fact a neighborhood coincidentally named "Corona" - was the epicenter for the coronavirus cases.  Those people who could afford it - a.k.a. rich assholes - left for places where they thought the pandemic wouldn't reach, though of course it eventually did.

So the lead character here is a rich asshole who booked an AirBnB somewhere upstate or in Connecticut, for a prolonged period of time.  Remember, people in March 2020 didn't know how long the shutdown was going to last, some were saying two weeks, but for all anybody knew, it could be two months or two years. So booking an AirBnB until "whenever" - well, it must be nice if you can afford that, but you're still a rich asshole, so own that, please. The problem is that June's boyfriend changed his mind about the plan, and decided to stay in the city to look after his parents - so she heads upstate alone, only to find that somebody else is booked into the same rental, only that person has paperwork, an e-mail confirmation at least.  

NITPICK POINT: I'm fairly sure that AirBnB has protocols in place that prevent this sort of double-booking error.  It might have made more sense for June's boyfriend, John, to have unbooked the house once he knew he wasn't going to leave the city, but then I suppose we'd have another set of problems relating to that.  So, umm, what happened?  Was her boyfriend lying about booking the house?  Did he cancel the booking and not tell her?  Was he trying to get rid of her for a couple months?  This is all fairly unclear - and so is the question over whether he was dating his new assistant - there was a photo online that showed him out on the town with another woman, presumably that assistant, but then the film never follows up on this point. 

Still, it gives June enough doubt over her relationship that when she starts to have feelings for the other guest at the house, she acts on that impulse, fairly quickly.  Like within just a few days. This brings me to another NITPICK POINT: In those early days of the pandemic, from what I remember, nobody really felt like having fun - playing cards or singing karaoke?  Nah, that would have been extremely crass, trying to have a good time while people were dying in hospitals or struggling on ventilators. What kind of a person would do that, or even be in the mood to have fun?  That's just not how it went down, but then again, I was in the city, I don't know what people did upstate.  But anyone who would use the pandemic as an excuse to do fun things with a new partner seems like a real super asshole. 

Sure, we heard stories about people finding their "quarantine partners" and hunkering down with them for a possibly long period of co-habitation.  Much like how AIDS changed some people's sexual habits (maybe?) during the 1980's because it was safer to just have one committed sexual partner.  Which it generally is, even if that's not the way some people WANT to live their lives, but then again, all life is a calculated risk, and everyone has to decide for themself what steps they want to take to reduce risks, across the board.  BUT I think we heard just as many stories about couples who broke up at the start of the pandemic because they were NOT ready or willing to co-habitate with their prospective partners.  I don't know, maybe both things happened, because the pandemic really changed everybody's lives somehow, in different ways. It's not for me to say, especially since I don't have all the data. 

The other thing at play here is the link between romance and familiarity, a lot of us are caught up in this cycle of serial monogamy where we meet somebody new, become familiar with them, and when that feels good and we're rewarded by the good feelings and the drugs produced in our brains as a result, we make commitments, because we want those good feelings to continue.  But then over time the feelings subside, we maybe get a little bored or we grow apart from our partners in some ways, and then we start to feel distant and disconnected, so we try to meet somebody new, and the cycle begins all over again.  Once you're aware of it, you can either accept this as your routine or you can try to fight against it - but if you're NOT aware of it, you're just going to keep going around the cycle. 

SO, this is what happens, June spends time with a new partner, she learns information about him, they get familiar with each other, they help each other through some tough times, and all the while, she's growing distant from her boyfriend, so she comes to view that previous relationship in a different way, it's not rewarding her with good feelings or good brain drugs because they're not sharing space, or sharing experiences.  She's starting to get those feelings from the new partner, just because they ARE sharing space and sharing experiences - it may or may not be "love" but it's the first phase of a relationship that could contain love down the road. 

But then things get confusing when her boyfriend does track her down, he finally manages to get out of the city and visit that AirBnB house, which is still somehow being rented by the same people, after two months?  Really, I didn't know you could rent an AirBnB for that long without filing for personal bankruptcy because of the huge bill.  Either way, even if the original rental was just for two weeks, they obviously overstayed, and I think that's against the rules.  Remember, nobody in March 2020 knew how long the situation would last. 

While I'm at it: 

NITPICK POINT: A house of that size only has one bedroom?  And one bathroom?  I find that really hard to believe. 

NITPICK POINT: Most AirBnBs have rules against smoking, as least from my experience. But we see Charlie smoking in the living room.  OK, what are they going to do, throw him out?  It's a pandemic so now he's got squatter's rights?  I don't think so...

NITPICK POINT: Who starts taking a shower without first making sure they have a towel ready, you know, for after? 

NITPICK POINT: Nobody calls it a "wine opener", I believe the proper term is "corkscrew". 

NITPICK POINT: Also, I remember that in the early days of the pandemic, when the word came out through the news that we all needed to start wearing masks, that's what we did when we went outside. Now, funny story, the initial advice about masks turned out to be completely backwards, people wore them outside and then took them off when they got back home - but then we learned that COVID spread more easily in close quarters, so we learned that wearing masks indoors was even more important, and the virus was less likely to spread when we were outside surrounded by fresh air.  But in "Alone Together", we see the two main characters hearing about the mask advice, making some homemade masks and then NEVER WEARING THEM AGAIN in the rest of the movie.  This just was NOT how people acted at the start of the pandemic, sorry. We wore our masks because we were scared shitless over the possibility of catching COVID and dying. 

NITPICK POINT: The synopsis says the house is either in New York City or upstate, but neither seems correct.  At one point Charlie leaves the house and goes for a drive, passing a sign that says "Welcome to New York State" - so Connecticut would make a bit more sense, I think. 

Other than the NPs and the mistakes made in the portrayal of the pandemic, there's really not much here to talk about.  Just rich boring people falling in love with each other, or thinking that they are, I'm not sure if they're even capable of love, they're just confusing it with familiarity, it feels like. Just me? 

Before I go, here's today's "Love Tip" - don't confuse love with familiarity, though they are tied together, and one can lead to the other, but it doesn't always. 

Also starring Katie Holmes (last seen in "Ocean's Eight"), Jim Sturgess (last seen in "Geostorm"), Derek Luke (last seen in "Definitely, Maybe"), Zosia Mamet (last seen in "Greenberg"), Ed Dixon, Neal Benari, Spenser Granese (last seen in "The Many Saints of Newark"), Mike Iveson (last seen in "West Side Story" (2021)), Laura Austin, Becky Ann Baker (last seen in "After Class"), and the voice of Andrew Cuomo

RATING: 5 out of 10 bottles of hand sanitizer