In these times of self-isolation, it’s easy to sit back and plot the type of coronavirus movie you’d like to make. Maybe it’s one about an embattled team of scientists and their desperate search for a vaccine. Maybe it’s one about an estranged father who has to fight his way through police lines in order to give his son a birthday present. Maybe – because not everything can be a gritty drama – it’s a hilarious comedy about a man whose trousers fall down whenever he coughs.
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Because, incredibly, Keshvari appears to have done just that. Entitled Corona, the film takes place entirely within the confines of an elevator. Neighbours of different backgrounds enter – a Chinese lady, a pregnant woman, a wheelchair-bound Nazi with a swastika tattoo on his forehead – and panic begins to spread just as quickly as the disease. Or, as the movie’s tagline puts it, “Fear is a Virus”.
http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sYSyuuLk5g
The movie, which starred actors like Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Jude Law and Kate Winslet, offered surprisingly well-researched insight into pandemic procedurals and worst-case scenarios
People across the world are renting it, trying to stream it online and binge-watching it… nine years after its release. iTunes has listed it the fourth-most rented movie now, after the US declared a state of emergency. It is also the second most-watched movie in Warner Bros.’ catalogue in 2020.