SARS-29

Pity the two previous reviewers who failed to realise that this is like an extended SNL spoof on the mounting stupidities of humankind in its response to Covid-19. A lubricious blend of Valley Girl and Borat. The lunacy of the interviewees accelerates as the film progresses (conspiracy theories, manmade virus, flat earth, G5, alien abduction). Even the musical soundtrack underscores the intended satire: bits of Holst, Elgar, Satie, and Puccini's Madame Butterfly for the *Chinese* witness (for the uninformed, Cio-Cio San is actually Japanese). By piling on trite and received ideas and deriding the classic self-styled Instagram talking heads who present themselves as sincere and woke, it's a brave attempt at levity in the face of a disaster whose course is still unpredictable as I write (January 2021). Hence the use of the gravelly voice of Morgan Freeman (uncredited) for the voice-over introduction to lend gravitas to what unfolds as a crescendo of mockery.