Vancouver filmmaker Ben Immanuel’s new Vancouver-shot movie Are We Done Now? proves that tragedy, plus time, not only equals comedy, it equals thought-provoking stories about connection and resilience.
“We don’t call it a COVID film,” said Immanuel, who also wrote the film. “I get why some people go, ‘Oh God, I don’t want to watch a movie about COVID.’ But our movie is not about tests and masks and all that stuff. It’s about just what was going on in the world, especially through the lens of Gen Z and Millennials.
“It’s about people trying to connect, and the difficulty of connecting, and how that is exacerbated by these new circumstances.”
Out now on VOD, the Vancouver-shot film focuses on a therapist (Gabrielle Miller) and a diverse handful of young-adult clients (Elliot Ramsey, Natalie Farrow and Favour Onwuka) who have agreed to take part in a documentary that sets out to understand the relationship between the pandemic and mental health.
Vancouver’s Ben Immanuel directs, writes and co-stars in the new film Are We Done Now? Set in the COVID times the film, out now on VOD, is a funny, heartfelt reminder of the importance of human connection. Photo: Angel Lynne.
“These characters represent real people, and I just want them to feel seen. And the hope is, that if these specific characters are seen, then other people are going to identify with those characters, and they’re going to feel seen,” said Immanuel, who plays the documentary filmmaker in the movie.
Through the shooting of the documentary, the characters peel back their own emotional layers on their way to personal insight and an understanding and acceptance of the world they move through.
It sounds deep, and at times it is, but it is also funny, heartfelt and very relatable.
“I’m just tired of the cynicism. And so much cynicism has built up over the past five years since this whole change in the world, maybe this film can be a tiny bit of an antidote for that poison,” said Immanuel, who began shooting the film in the early stages of the pandemic and continued to do so throughout.
The initial idea for a film set during COVID came up while Immanuel was having coffee with a friend. As quickly as you can say, “tall skinny latte” Immanuel dismissed the idea. But it seemed that it didn’t completely leave his mind as he returned to the topic while chatting over Zoom with his Haven Acting Studio students. Through those conversations, Immanuel warmed to the idea. But as it turns out, those with the money were not so hot on the concept.
“We got close with a couple of streamers, but ultimately we were told, ‘You know, we don’t know what to do with this, because nobody wants to really look at COVID now, and when we’re done with it, nobody’s going to want to look at it then,’” said Immanuel, adding one executive said it would work in 10 years’ time. “Of course, that’s not what you want to hear as a filmmaker.”
Fast forward and Are We Done Now?, after some festival screenings, is in wide release on VOD.
“I find it interesting, and I’m going to be interested to see what people’s feelings are,” said Slocan Valley resident Miller (Corner Gas) about setting the story in a time of lockdowns. “Watching it brought back a lot of feelings and memories that I didn’t even remember that I had because that time was so intense. But it was kind of lovely. The film does have so much humour in it, and it’s kind of refreshing to be able to look at it and have a bit of laughter around it.”
The part of therapist Pamela Givers was written for Miller, and it embraces and fully utilizes Miller’s charming approach to comedy, which Immanuel says is “vintage Mary Tyler Moore,” in that Miller is deft at finding the serious beats in comedy and the funny beats in something serious.
“I jumped at the opportunity,” said Miller who has worked with Immanuel many times over the years and counts him as a friend. “I was really excited to do something creative during that time. When everything feels like it’s falling apart, it’s really great to have the grounding of work.”
The idea of the story about a documentary filmmaker interviewing a group of young people and their therapist began with Immanuel’s own experience of holding Zoom acting classes during the lockdowns.
“We had a lot of conversations and a lot of difficult conversations, and I was enlightened, you know, in many, many ways during that time,” said Immanuel.
In the new film Are We Done Now?, out on VOD, Favour Onwuka plays Mercy one of three characters who a documentary film director (Ben Immanuel) follows as they live through COVID and try to make sense of things with the help of a therapist (Gabrielle Miller) who is also struggling emotionally during the dark times of the pandemic.
In the film, a young Black woman named Mercy (Onwuka) struggles to share her lived experiences with her online acting class the day after George Floyd was murdered.
“The whole scene about that character being in class the day after George Floyd was killed, I think that, in many ways, inspired me to actually make this film. Because that happened,” said Immanuel. “The day after George Floyd was killed, we had a class, and everyone gathered, and there was like six or seven white faces and people looking sad and kind of shook up. And then there was Favour, it was a very loaded moment.”
Immanuel went on to say that Onwuka approached the situation with “such strength and grace,” that he had to put it into his script.
Also, under the heading of life dictating art is Farrow’s character Lennon’s driving goal to get TikTok-famous and pull in one million followers. This was something Farrow actually stated when she joined the Zoom acting classes.
“I’m there to support, but I’m also kind of rolling my eyes and thinking, that’s an actor’s goal, to get a million followers?” said Imanuel. “I don’t really understand what TikTok is, so I looked at it, and I looked at what she was doing on it, and she was doing these acting videos where she was playing these scenes, and I thought, God damn, she’s really good … Not everyone on TikTok is just an exhibitionist or self-indulgent. There are people who are offering something, they’re giving something. And she was giving a lot.”
Other conversations in the film dig into gender and the experiences of a gay character named Jayme (Ramsey).
“Elliot is not somebody to shut down the old white guy,” said Immanuel about Ramsey. “He’s going to listen and give you a chance and have a real conversation. And I really appreciated that, and I wanted him to have a voice so people could just hear that.
“Every sort of woke Millennial is not out to take your head off. People just want to be heard … I was so glad to give Elliot free reign to speak his truth.”
As for Pamela the therapist, well, she is supporting her clients, but once away from her laptop’s camera, it becomes apparent that she too is struggling with the lack of connections in her life.
“They’re people too,” said Miller about showing the cracks in the therapist’s life.
Miller hopes the movie will remind viewers of the need for human connection.
“We are self-isolating through our screens and social media,” said Miller. “The way we connect has changed since COVID and the world today has changed dramatically. The isolation you see in this film is a reminder that we need to make sure we continue to connect, to not emotionally isolate.
“You know that isolation, that feeling of isolation, it started as a little crack that has continued to spread. And we need to fill that crack with gold.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com ’
