I Think We’re Alone Now (2018)

(On Cable TV, April 2020) I’m juuust enough of a misanthrope to have some affinity with I Think We’re Alone Now’s protagonist—a small-town librarian who finds himself the sole survivor of a global apocalyptic plague. The film is a slow-paced meditative affair, especially at first—it takes nearly a quarter of an hour before the first line of dialogue is spoken, as the camera follows the protagonist (played by Peter Dinklage) living in a library and methodically burying the dead people in his town. This cozy state of affairs ends when a young woman arrives in town, bringing along complications that keep developing until a third act that (somewhat disappointingly) goes much wider than the opening of the film would suggest. Helmed with some skill by Reed Morano, this is a small, evocative film that riffs off a popular 1960s Science Fiction trope—the only survivor of a catastrophe and how they cope with it. I found it far more compelling at first with its clear sense of spatial-temporal unity—although I can understand the factors leading to a more expansive third act. On the other hand, I’m not sure that this specific third act is the best philosophical choice on which to end the film—it seems to me that the film loses its way somewhere along the line and crawls its way to a mediocre conclusion. Still, the first half-hour is pretty good, and it’s always good to see Dinklage getting great roles.