Film Review: #Alive

Man, don’t you hate it when you’re logging in to play an online game with your homies when all of a sudden the zombie apocalypse starts happening? Because that is how the day starts for Oh Joon-woo (Yoo Ah-in), a young man who lives in a flat with his family, who largely spends his day streaming the games he plays with his friends. One day, as he logs on, his friends are telling him to look at the news, and it appears something is spreading that is infecting the locals. He looks out the window to see absolute chaos in the streets.

He’s alone in the apartment during all this because his family was out, and he is forced to lock the doors, and lay low. Unfortunately, he didn’t listen to his mother’s previous instructions to get some groceries, so he will soon run out of food. However, he manages to make the best out of a bad situation, keeping safe inside the apartment, though the same can’t necessarily be said for his sanity, which is made worse by the loneliness and isolation. It isn’t until a chance encounter with a woman, Kim Yoo-bin (Park Shin-hye), who lives in the building across from him that things seem to look up.

With a setup like that, it almost feels like a project tailor made for watching during the COVID-19 pandemic as many are still quarantining in their homes. It certainly captures that sense of boredom one would experience trying to make through each day, but unlike us, Joon-woo can’t go out to get food. It takes all the anxieties many of us felt the past six months, and boils it down to all the most primal elements associated with those fears. The fear of how one will survive, how your loved ones will survive, how you will make it through the day with your mind still intact.

When Yoo-bin enters the picture, one might think the film is bringing in a romance element, but that is surprisingly not the case. What we get with these two characters as they try to communicate from one building to another is a very primal bond, one that points to our desire for basic human connection. The moment when Joon-woo realizes he isn’t alone, he gives himself a reason to live. Describing any zombie movie as a story about survival might seem derivative, but here, it isn’t about survival in the sense of how far are you willing to go to survive? How cruel? How deep into your primal instincts can you go before you lose any semblance of humanity? #Alive is less about that, and more about how much we are willing to endure to survive, and how much we are willing to help one another in the midst of extreme circumstances.

The performances from the actors here are top notch. While there are a couple others who show up for a few moments, the film largely rests on the shoulders of Yoo Ah-in, and Park Shin-hye when she is later introduced. Some you might recognize Yoo from his excellent turn in Lee Chang-dong’s 2018 film, Burning, which you should check out if you haven’t already. He’s a compelling actor who can effortlessly command the screen with an understated presence. Park is very charming in her introductory moments, and I love how she is able to show a slow building of a connection with Yoo’s character despite taking a while before they eventually meet. The subtle work she puts in even in the most quiet moments by herself in her apartment help you buy into the bond that eventually forms.

#Alive doesn’t necessarily break the mold of the zombie movie, nor does it dig deep into the kind of social commentary that often comes with some of the best of the genre, but what makes it engaging is the willingness of director, Cho Il-hyung, and his co-writer, Matt Naylor, to take a more subdued and deeply human approach than one might initially expect. It makes for a film that relies less on misery and gore (this is perfect for folks who consider themselves squeamish), and instead explore the genre through a more intimate and emotionally charged angle. Despite minimal information, I really grew to love these characters, and I found myself rooting for them to survive the zombie horde that surrounds them. It’s simple, and one could theoretically poke plenty of holes in the plot, but I found it very effective. This year has found many films that have unwittingly captured a certain essence of what it has felt like living in the year of our Lord 2020 – The Platform, Sea Fever, The Beach House, Palm Springs, She Dies Tomorrow, and in more direct sense, Host. #Alive fits nicely in that crop, and for my money, really stands out as a lean and resonate piece of genre filmmaking.

#Alive is now available on Netflix.