Lockdown Lovers

Lockdown Lovers was probably smart in when they made this pandemic lockdown-themed film. Given its release date, the film seems to have been produced after at least the thick of the 2020 lockdowns. This means instead of trying to react to things ongoing, it’s more a reflection of the recent past. But close enough after that time to still have a lot of memory about the specifics. Congrats on all that, but for me, there isn’t enough distance in 2025 from the pandemic lockdowns to make this an enjoyable two hour sit. I don’t know if it ever would be.

Kristal and Lisette meet at a bar in what is supposed to be Kristal’s last 48 hours visiting Australia. But at the end of their two-night stand, Kristal awakes to find all flights cancelled and Australia in a state of lockdown. Impulsively, Lisette offers that Kristal can stay with her in her suspiciously nice house. As the two spend lockdown together, their different personalities begin to clash. Kristal develops increasingly intense Covid anxiety whereas Lisette largely disregards the risk the virus represents.

Basically, Lockdown Lovers is a movie about why moving in with someone and spending all your time together right off the bat is probably not a good way to do a relationship. It’s just that there’s a direct background of a real global pandemic where people died. The film does bring this up. Kristal is Canadian. She’s constantly worried about the people back home. But like Lisette, Lockdown Lovers is Australian. They as a nation had a somewhat different experience with Covid-19. The kind of experience that apparently means a director might choose a lockdown romance as the focus of a film. As someone watching who isn’t Australian, I had a harder time getting on board with this concept. Outside of all the illness and death, I knew a lot more couples who broke up because they locked down in tiny, one-bedroom apartments.

Lockdown Lovers is within the Flunk universe or franchise. When I first learned about Flunk, I was excited about how much lesbian content this Australian webseries and film company developed. But after watching only three of their films, I’m beginning to wish the Flunk universe would focus on quality over quantity. Taken as a whole, the Flunk universe retreads a lot of the same ground. Lesbian relationships between young Australian women that walk the line between realistic and romantic. I just don’t think there’s a need for any given person to see every Flunk film. Seeing even 1/3 of their output would probably give you the sum total of what the series focuses on. Of course given the nature of my life, I will be seeing that other two-thirds and I am not looking forward to it.

Lockdown Lovers is notable in the specifics of its lesbian romance. Though in execution, this is a very standard film. The Flunk oeuvre doesn’t do a lot of artistic flourishes. And the ones they do: reliance on montage with a pop song and probably some romantic, purple tinted lighting have already started to wear on me. I cannot say the film is bad necessarily, but it’s just really something I didn’t need to see. Both because I’ve already seen other Flunk movies and because I’m not at a point yet where I want to see a romance that’s directly regarding the Covid-19 pandemic.

Overall rating: 5.1/10

Other WLW films in similar genres