Review | Social Distancing movie review: mobile phone addiction inspires pandemic-set Hong Kong horror thriller that is let down by dreadful storytelling
- Social Distancing awkwardly imparts the problems of becoming too dependant on your phone while throwing in a supernatural element and a few jump scares
- While the Gilitte Leung-directed feature has some interesting ideas, the story is so badly written that the result is a forgettable mess
1.5/5 stars
Do not get addicted to your phone. Pay attention to family. And do not allow a friend to be sexually assaulted for the sake of advancing her career - these are the life lessons awkwardly imparted by Social Distancing, a supernatural horror movie with a ludicrously preachy undertone.
Set in Hong Kong during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, this second feature by writer-director Gilitte Leung Pik-chi – a Cantopop composer who made her filmmaking debut with the promising 2012 indie Love Me Not – has a smattering of interesting ideas throughout.
Back in Hong Kong in early 2020, a traumatised Cherry finds little solace at home. Her mother (Mimi Kung Chi-yan) moves out to live in a factory building unit to quarantine herself, and her introverted younger brother, Seven (Zeno Koo Ting-hin), locks himself in his bedroom with his computers.
To boost viewership to her paranormal YouTube channel, Cherry gets her hands on a phone that belonged to a recently dead person. An app called E-Ghost is seemingly automatically installed on her own phone, and the film then becomes scattered with random sightings that perform as perfunctory jump scares.
Social Distancing features strikingly eerie images that are sadly wasted by Leung’s ineffective storytelling. Cherry’s love interest, played by Angus Yeung Tin-yue, remains a frivolous presence, and the film eventually devolves into a tensionless death game that makes a mockery of its earlier build-up.
Stories about the alienating effects of communications technology are a fixture of our times. While Leung tantalises us with some well-intentioned reminders of that theme, her story is very badly written: the film sets out to be a thriller with satirical aspirations, but emerges as a forgettable mess.
