Talk about time
The year is 2021. A scary, angry population stretches out outside a medical center, desperate for a cure for a terrible virus. “Push it in front!” someone is shouting.
Talk about time. When he began making “Little Fish,” an intimate romance and influenced in a sci-fi setting, director Chad Hartigan had no idea that the world would be dealing with a real pandemic. real 2021. Watching this fictional society start to get confused feeling just a tad too close to comfort.
Perhaps for the best, then, is “Little Fish,” starring Olivia Cooke and Jack O’Connell, a sci-fi romance who doesn’t spend too much time on the “sci.” “
Yes, this virus – NIA, or Neuroinflammatory Affliction – horribly causes the victims to lose their memories, sometimes suddenly and sometimes slowly, with no relation to age, sex or anything other. But the focus here is on the role of memory in a relationship. Obviously, the memories we create together are the essential building blocks. But if they disappear, is love still there? And what is that like? Without a past, can we have a gift, let alone a future?
We start on a windswept beach in the Seattle area. A young woman, Emma, is sitting alone, crying. A friendly dog runs up for a cuddle, followed shortly after by its owner, Jude. He amazes her with her elegant accent in the north of England. They laugh.
The clever script by Mattson Tomlin goes around in time over the couple’s year-long friendship, from the lovely first kiss – online for the club bathroom – to moving in together, to praise neat in a pet store, to marry. While the approach isn’t linear, it doesn’t feel confusing, either, although you might want to try to blame everything.
There is no question that we are rooted for those two charismatic characters. Emma, a veterinary technician, is aiming for a better future as a scientist. Jude is a designer who has been damaging the touring rock band under the direction of his friend, Ben. When he texts Emma shortly after they meet, she’s at a Halloween party, He invites her to his party instead. She looks like George Washington, but says she is dressed as an 18th-century French veterinarian Claude Bourgelat. By the time she goes upstairs, he knows for sure who that is. “What are you wearing, someone who Googles things and pretends to know them already? ”She chews, sweetly.
Soon they are a couple, building memories together as at that time they painted their walls yellow – Emma ‘s favorite color – and they had an unusual paint fight. But remember – those memories come to us just as they are lost. And so we ask: What memories do we see, anyway? His, hers, or anyone?
The first scary reports seem far removed from everyday life. There is a fisherman who forgot how to operate his boat, so he jumped into the water to swim home. People suddenly forget how they could drive cars. Seriously, pilots lose the ability to fly, midair.
Then the virus hits Ben (Raúl Castillo). His girlfriend Sam (the Soko singer and songwriter, doing some of her own work) takes him to a tattoo parlor and a key piece of music is tied into his arm.
And then, Jude. First is the detail – it shows up late hours to wedding photography work. He forgets his and Emma’s arguments. One day Emma sees that he is behind a picture: “Emma, wife. “It is a desperate race against time to find a cure or cure. Cooke’s slow shock is a heartbreak to watch.
The film is a strong echo of the 2004 classic “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” in which the same question arose: What is left when memories disappear? In addition to this, “Little Fish” asks, to what extent are we allowed to mourn when the grief is not special to us?
Or, in a line from Emma who certainly wouldn’t be able to be faster in real 2021: “When your accident is a catastrophe for everyone, how do you grieve? ”
“Little Fish,” an IFC Films message, is produced by the Motion Picture Association of America. Running time: 101 minutes. Three stars out of four.
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