Whilst it’s always best to go into films with zero expectations, plot synopses and narrative outlines at least provide an idea of what audiences can expect from a storytelling perspective – however loose the product itself wants to determine as such. For New Strains, there was the idea of this being sold as a romantic comedy, one that projects a certain sweetness amongst the all too lived-in terror of its pandemic setting. I’m all for the term “romantic comedy” being interpreted in a variety of manners, but, and maybe I’m being optimistic, I still expect a resemblance of either romance or comedy to shine through. New Strains, however…
Shot on an Hi8 camcorder, the VHS-grain of Artemis Shaw and Prashanth Kamalakanthan‘s offbeat “comedy” speaks to the voyeuristic mentality that captured many over the course of the lockdown, with their characters Kallia (Shaw) and Ram (Kamalakanthan) navigating “the new normal” in a New York apartment in the peak COVID period of early-mid 2020.
Kallia’s uncle has lent them the flat – we hear a concerning story regarding him flashing her as a child in the largely ad-lobbed script – and it doesn’t take long for New Strains to initially earn awkward, knowing chuckles from its viewers with scenes of Ram incessantly cleaning every surface and Kallia entertaining herself with dress-ups and playful hobbies; one sequence, as Ram is on a cleaning spree, sees Kallia, donned in a cheerleader outfit, “annoy” him by playing a musical instrument in his personal space. She finds it rightfully amusing. He does not.
And it’s his outburst at wanting to not be interrupted that immediately sets a tone regarding their relationship that Shaw and Kamalakanthan’s “script” leans into. Being in New York means Kallia and Ram are really tethered to each other in this space, with overheard news reports breaking down death rates and the imprisonment-like temperament many of us felt as we could only leave our house for specific reasons. Kallia manages to walk the streets of New York whenever she can, and she gets daily exercise in via an online workout class, but there’s a certain infant-like mentality both adhere to as they are overwhelmed by the lack of freedom the pandemic has forced upon them.
Despite their occasional playful banter, and one quite invasive shot of him performing oral sex on her, Kallia and Ram never appear like two people that particularly love each other, or even really like each other, for that fact. Perhaps already at a stage in their union where they were experiencing something of a lull, and the forced intimacy brought about by COVID only enhanced that distain, New Strains, which quickly becomes a tedious experience due to lack of structure, a void of interesting conversations, and introducing a could-be science-fiction-interpreted subplot, fails to hold any worth as a character study as we are never afforded an insight into their partnership beyond evident annoyance at each other’s quirks.
Though there’s the occasionally amusing back-and-forth between the two, New Strains amounts to little more than a series of random moments. Even with a (thankfully) short running time (it barely scratches 80 minutes), Shaw and Kamalakanthan’s film feels like a nightmarish chore to sit through, rather than something of a reflective piece for something we all collectively experienced.
TWO STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
New Strains is screening as part of the Screen Festival Program at this year’s SXSW Sydney, running between October 15th and 22nd, 2023.
