Distant Tales: Another Review. By Richard Schertzer.

It might have some good actors, but that doesn’t mean there’s any coherence in the execution of this film. The story tells a series of bizarre tales that seem to mostly take place over zoom. It starts off with two people seemingly having a sexual relationship over Zoom, which turns into something extremely toxic and deadly.

There’s something of the theme of the COVID-19 lockdown that seems omnipresent in the realm of the narrative for this film. I understand that director Shem Bitterman was trying to make a COVID-type film, but it would have been a lot better as one cohesive movie instead of a series of vignettes that seem to feel more eerie and disjointed than endearing.

If one idea of one story was given more screen time and expanded upon, the structure might have worked a lot better than what was given and if I am going to be frank, each story seems rushed and never feels like a fully fleshed-out project.

It almost makes you wonder how Bitteman got the idea to combine a sexual relationship, a testing patient and doctor, a new employee and interviewee, and a struggling father and right-wing commentator. It seems as if Bitterman thought that these were the only types of people that sprang up during the COVID-19 lockdown.

What seems a lot more frustrating is the fact that the vignettes never seem to collide with one another in any meaningful way to help culminate the story to a rousing finale and it seems that many portions of the plot were left unresolved and didn’t have a decent resolution.

Moreover, the film has some great performances, but ultimately succumbs to the pitfalls of a jumbled narrative.

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