No More Time

by Rachel Willis

What writer/director Dalila Droege does really well with her pandemic thriller, No More Time, is capture the fear, paranoia, and rage that comes with a viral outbreak.

Hilarie (Jennifer Harlow) and her husband, Steve (Mark Reeb), flee Texas for Colorado in hopes of finding some kind of escape. They seek to disappear, leaving everyone they know behind and hiding in a vacation town in the mountains.

A radio announcer (voiced by Jim Beaver) embodies the rage that can breed from the conflicting information that comes with a viral pandemic. Beaver’s broadcaster falls into the trap of thinking that if information changes on daily basis, that makes it suspect. The vocal performance captures the blind anger that comes from a place of deep fear and distrust.

However, that doesn’t mean that, within this world, the radio is entirely wrong. There is something very disturbing about the virus.

Droege effectively captures the ways in which our society can easily fall apart when faced with an external, existential threat. The idea of mean-world syndrome permeates nearly every moment that Steve and Hilarie interact with the people around them.

To juxtapose the deep schisms growing among the human population, Droege peppers peaceful scenes of the ecosystem throughout. The environment glows in opposition to the violence brewing in the human world.

Droege’s instinct for dialog is not as strong. At times the lines are so heavy handed as to be unbelievable.

But the overall effect of the film is deeply unsettling and familiar. Though the virus at the heart of No More Time is vastly different than the one we endured, the emotions are the same. We can learn from past mistakes, or fall into the same fear, paranoia, and anger that crippled us in the past and permeates the world of No More Time.