THE STORY – Two married couples quarantine together in a country house during the COVID-19 lockdown. Tensions rise and relationship issues surface.
THE CAST – Vincent Macaigne, Micha Lescot, Nine d’Urso & Nora Hamzawi
THE TEAM – Olivier Assayas (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 105 Minutes
Remember 2020? Olivier Assayas clearly does, and in his latest film, “Suspended Time,” he takes audiences back to that historic (derogatory) year. If that sounds like an unwelcome invitation, Assayas is just as aware. And before audiences are isolated with the quartet of characters locked down together, he eases viewers in by opening the movie with gorgeous, patient shots of the French countryside, underscored by gentle narration. But once we join the main characters in isolation, watching the film begins to feel like being stuck in a seemingly endless pretentious Zoom book club, or any other kind of tedious virtual social activity that many of us sought out during that stressful time. With his characters – especially the central figure and directorial stand-in Paul – Assayas explores the lockdown era and how it altered the behaviors and thoughts of every single person on Earth. But he does so in a way that’s hard to watch, not because of the trauma it may dredge up for viewers, but because of just how uninteresting it is.
Paul (Vincent Macaigne) is our central character, and he embodies someone that many of us are familiar with (and many watching may even relate to him). He’s ultra-cautious about COVID. You remember the type: the kind of person who’d leave the groceries outside for hours out of an abundance of caution. To avoid the deadly virus, he takes refuge at his childhood home along with his girlfriend, Morgane (Nine d’Urso). Joining him in confinement – but decidedly not aligned with Paul on the level of precaution he’s willing to take – is his brother Etienne (Micha Lescot), accompanied by his girlfriend Carole (Nora Hamzawi). Both men are recently separated, having left wives and children behind for their new flames.
At the gorgeous country estate, the quartet is very effectively isolated from society, only briefly encountering outsiders in the form of delivery drivers and shopkeepers they meet on their brief, hurried journeys into town. The film bears a resemblance to the types of bare-bones, small-scale productions made in 2020 and 2021, when restrictions on film sets were at their highest, leading to workarounds and sparse call sheets. As such, it seems curious that the film would be made at this time, post-lockdown, or at least made in this way. But the film is obviously and decidedly a period piece, and part of its purpose is to look back on that very specific, important time in recent history. Assayas makes observations about the ways that many of us handled the most dangerous part of the pandemic that he could only make in hindsight. Notably, he doesn’t cast judgment on either Paul for his perhaps excessive paranoia, nor on Etienne for his much more carefree approach.
The film’s most striking observation comes late in the film, when Paul expresses to his therapist via video chat that he finds enjoyment in some specific aspects of lockdown, and he fears that society won’t learn from this time and instead revert to its worst habits. This is where the film gets its title, as Paul waxes poetic about the sense of suspended time that lockdown gives him, in a kind of pre-nostalgic melancholy. Capturing a character’s sadness over the loss of something they haven’t yet lost is exactly the kind of hyper-specific emotional exploration that films of this scale do best, and Paul is strangely relatable in his curious fondness for this time in history. No one would want to relive 2020 over again in exactly the same way, and the toll on human life (both those who passed away and those who remained behind) is still unfathomable. But as Paul expounds, there were certain aspects of the lockdown era when people were forced to put aside distractions and focus on the things that matter most – our most immediate loved ones and their basic needs – that made it feel almost utopian, despite being done in the face of catastrophe.
But such profound discussions and observations are rare in this film. Instead, most of the film’s scenes revolve around two types of interactions: either endless arguments between the two brothers about COVID protocols or rambling theorizing and discussion from Paul about artists, authors, musicians, and other figures of intellectual interest. For example, he has a specific fondness for the painter David Hockney and name-drops him several times. Paul is essentially a walking encyclopedia of intelligentsia talking points and figures, and hearing him endlessly go on and on in masturbatory, circular monologues is exhausting. The film even seems to know this, as after yet another self-important spiel, Morgane says to Paul, “Can’t you just talk?” But even if the film is aware of how tiresome he is, that doesn’t make this character choice any more tolerable.
As Paul, Vincent Macaigne brings a necessary sympathetic energy to his character. Without such a tactful depiction, Paul would be unwatchably insufferable. And as his brother Etienne, Micha Lescot takes a rascally, charming approach. Even when his character is bothering Paul in a way that might make the audience just as irritated with Etienne, Lescot manages to rescue the character from simply being an annoyance.
“Suspended Time” is a frustrating watch. Its repetitive nature makes sense given the cramped, routine existence that its characters inhabit, but there are ways to make such a monotonous moment in time still feel compelling. Instead, the film is self-indulgent and impenetrably cerebral. There’s discussion to be had and drama to be mined regarding 2020, but in a more captivating manner.
