Secret COVID documentary Totally Under Control examines Trump’s disastrous response to the pandemic

Filmed in secret over the past five months, directors Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side), Suzanne Hillinger (How to Fix an Election), and Ophelia Harutyunyan’s (Citizen K) Totally Under Control documentary is a damning account of how the Trump administration has mishandled the response to the coronavirus, which to date has claimed over 200,000 American lives.

The film follows the pandemic response in chronological order, from the first chatter that something was awry in Wuhan, China, through to the coronavirus’ arrival and rapid spread throughout the U.S. The film clearly establishes the timeline of the pandemic and demonstrates who knew what and when through interviews with scientists and politicians around the globe.

The main crux of the film is how the Trump administration bungled the U.S. response to the pandemic, from ignoring the problem in the early stages and claiming it would just disappear on its own, to Trump proclaiming that the situation was “totally under control,” in the early stages of the outbreak. The film clearly shows how the Trump administration silenced and pushed aside scientists who raised alarm bells early, and instituted career politicians with little to no experience with contagious diseases to lead important roles in the pandemic response. One of the most infuriating developments is Trump placing his son-in-law Jarrod Kushner in charge to lead a team of inexperienced unpaid interns in seeking out PPE from around the world. While medical staff throughout the U.S. were risking their lives and resorting to reusing masks and wearing garbage bags instead of their needed hospital gowns, a group of young interns was blindly cold-calling companies to try to procure their much-needed PPE (the program resulted in zero sales).

Alongside Trump’s refusal to take the pandemic seriously, easily remedied bureaucratic hiccups between the CDC and the FDA resulted in a full month of testing being widely unavailable in the U.S., just as cases were beginning to skyrocket. Without any way to know the true rate of spread within their communities, scientists and policymakers had to sit back for weeks while the virus propagated throughout the U.S., an unimaginable delay that set the country up for the massive numbers it is experiencing today.

Filmed with small cameras the team designed and sent out to many of their interview subjects that the directing team could control remotely (others were filmed with a team taking extensive safety precautions which are shown in the film), Totally Under Control looks great, which is obviously not the main point, but it’s refreshing to see a two-hour documentary filmed entirely during the pandemic without a single Zoom call.

Alex Gibney, Suzanne Hillinger, and Ophelia Harutyunyan have crafted a heartbreaking and damning look at how the Trump administration and excessive bureaucratic red tape led to the unchecked spread of coronavirus throughout the U.S. (not to mention the rest of the world when international travel was still proceeding unchecked). The callous disregard the administration displays for science is baffling and infuriating; Totally Under Control truly gives the impression of a group of politicians and businessmen more concerned with the pandemic’s effects on Wall Street than on the lives of millions of their fellow citizens.

With just a few weeks before the upcoming U.S. election, Totally Under Control should be mandatory viewing. This is an urgent film that clearly shows how the U.S. response to COVID stacks up to countries like Korea, which truly do have things “under control,” thanks to their rapid response and reliance on hard science. That the film already needs a sequel (the film was completed one day before Trump announced his positive COVID diagnosis) is almost beside the point. The sequel may come later, but everyone should see this film now, and every American should see this before they cast their ballots on Tuesday, November 3.

Totally Under Control is available on VOD now, and begins streaming on Hulu on October 20.