Officially, the COVID-19 pandemic is over. Lockdowns have ended, wearing a mask in public is no longer required, and we’re back to business as usual. But the pandemic will not be forgotten soon, and media depicting its legacy is likely to keep being made.
A Trip Elsewhere follows four lonely, burned-out individuals approaching middle age in the midst of the lockdown. Sorina (Andrea Geones, Resident Alien) is a single mother abandoned by her partner and living in her car after dropping out of medical school. When her friend Amy (Maura Mannle) finds some LSD she never got a chance to try, the two decide to get together for, as the title suggests, a trip elsewhere. Just for one day. On the way, Sorina runs into college buddy Lenny (Hayes Dunlap) and Amy strongarms jaded ex-paramedic Dale (J.R. Sawyers) into joining them. The four are awkward and dysfunctional from the beginning, to the point where they accidentally take way too big a dose. Straight-laced Lenny falls unconscious, and when the other three try to help and find their hands passing through him like a hologram, they realize they’re in for a far more serious experience than any of them could’ve anticipated.
The bright CGI visuals are pretty much exactly what you’d expect from a movie about hallucinogenic drugs, but there’s a surprising amount of emotion in between the melting walls and flying fish. The protagonists learn what’s really worth holding on to, and what’s better off let go. It’s poignant and sad, it’s funny, and it’s relatable.
Andrea Geones kills it as Sorina. Her delivery is heartfelt and emotional in a way that really stands out. Janet Carter and Steven Robert ReMalia are perfectly cast as her parents, too.
While I often see writer-director-actors trying to balance too much, to the detriment of their films, J.R. Sawyers pulls all three off very well. His writing is creative and realistic, the film is well-paced, and his performance as Dale is strong. His motivations end up forming a powerful emotional core for the story, pulling everything together perfectly.
I was especially impressed by how well this film handled its delicate subject matter. Obviously it deals with death and drug use, but aside from those, the biggest trigger warnings I feel the need to offer are for unreality, repetition, and trypophobia. The opening titles are hard to read, but the end credits are basic white text over a black screen, so it evens out somewhat on that front.
COVID-19 will be with us for a long time. Even if the disease itself is eradicated, its impact will last. A Trip Elsewhere came at the right time, examining some of the real social and emotional effects of the pandemic without feeling gratuitous. No matter where you’re at in life or how you were affected by the pandemic, something in this film is likely to resonate with you.