It’s surprising more contemporary zombie films haven’t been thinly-veiled metaphors for the COVID-19 pandemic. In that vein, Meera Menon‘s bleakly amusing “Didn’t Die” has the right idea — one of several remarkable conceptual instincts— though its end result is somewhat scattered. The movie follows sardonic Indian American podcast host Vinita Malhotra (Kiran Deol) through romantic and familial reunions as her show celebrates its 100th episode. Menon attempts to juggle this straightforward plot with thoughtful reflections on lingering trauma two years into an apocalypse, though the film doesn’t always succeed.
Menon’s monochrome zombie comedy-drama is, first and foremost, a character piece: it works best when the audience is allowed to forget about its horror subgenre. Intentional or otherwise, this makes for a fitting embodiment of how mane people operate amid global tragedy; out of sight, out of mind. However, this imbalance proves debilitating in the moments the parallel stories collide, resulting in aesthetic clashes too.
Through her casual, lingering camera, Menon (and husband-writer-cinematographer Paul Gleason) creates withdrawn sensations as Vinita traverses a desolate U.S. landscape during her podcast tour, alongside her meek younger brother Rishi (Vishal Vijayakumar). Rishi is troubled by something in his past — and even more so by the fact that the film’s nocturnal zombies, or “biters,” have begun appearing during daylight, a mutated “second wave” — but Vinita does not, or cannot, recognize her brother’s woes. She’s a distinctly inward-looking protagonist, making her attempts to connect with listeners (over the airwaves, and in person) all the more fraught.
The siblings end up at the home of their older brother, Hari (Samrat Chakrabarti) and his wife Barbara (Karie McCuen), who have spent the last two years of this global meltdown indoors. Hari is pensive in his private moments, but puts on a personable front for family, while Barbara — whose name seems to be one of several nods to “The Night of the Living Dead” — is caught between staying on guard with protective spears and bedazzling her weapons as a hobby. Chakrabarti and McCuen are the movie’s most powerful dramatic tools; although initially unassuming, they gradually unfurl complex dramatic layers to both characters in the limited time they’re given.
The couple’s home provides refuge for the Malhotra family to reminisce (through flashbacks presented as 8mm home movies), and much-needed dramatic downtime for the film itself, far away from zombie attacks that are presented imprecisely, if not outright sloppily. However, for every bit of action and horror that lacks all impact, Menon creates enticing moments of character-centric comedy when Vinita runs into her wayward ex-boyfriend Vincent, who claims to have turned over a new leaf, and carries with him a baby girl he rescued from a “biter” attack, challenging his inability to commit.
The interpersonal moments between these vibrant characters are usually a treat. It’s especially refreshing to watch a group of South Asian American characters exist without having to announce or justify their identities (as is the case when they’re supporting characters in bigger productions, or in personal indie projects, wherein inter-generational strife is often the primary focus). Moreover, there’s a distinct harmony to the film’s interracial couplings — born, perhaps, from the lives of its two married writers — without the need to present awkward skirmishes. It isn’t a culture-clash comedy, but rather, one in which the characters are all familiar with each other’s lives and backgrounds, and their tensions are more encompassing than mere superficial misunderstandings (Even the Malhotra family appears to be mix of South and North Indian ethnicities). While it seems counter-intuitive to harp on what the movie doesn’t do, this absence of familiar tropes paves a wider path along which the characters’ relationships can unfold, between Vinita and Vincent confronting their past, and Hari and Barbara reluctantly planning for a future they may never see.
The film is jam-packed with wonderful ideas, though it’s seldom allowed to bring them all to fruition, if only because its zombies feel less like a pressing danger (or even metaphors) and more like trite interruptions. On one hand, that makes sense as an analogue of the pandemic, since the undead throw a wrench into any and all plans. However, they’re never scary, or funny, or ironic; their appearance is always accompanied by “Didn’t Die” losing control (usually in terms of geography and proximity, which go immediately out the window).
The effect here is two-fold. The “biters” are only technically symbolic, in the most base and roundabout way. They represent all the same things (illness, isolation), both when they’re hidden away from the narrative and when they make take over the plot. It leads to a hastening of character arcs and a lack of discernible danger, snowballing into a heavily protracted final act. If anything, that the film is about zombies at all is an inconvenience; their genre elements’ primary function is to tie disparate parts together, but there’s not enough formal precision to back it up. As personal drama, “Didn’t Die” almost works. Ironically, it narrowly misses cohesion, and the spark of life, because its premise keeps centering the dead.
