Lockdown Lovers

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Nifty use of old school samples, tight drums and insistent basslines are the signature moves on this release. During the first lockdown, there was a period where we essentially spent four months completely in each other’s company every day, and we both were working from home. The virus provides a pathogen that can be named and resisted, solutions that can be purchased and hoarded: the trolleys “full of sanitary towels” and “alcohol disinfectant”.

Ric Forster’s Lockdown Lovers star Kate Mayhew and Stevie McKeon as Kristal and Lisette, two women who share a one-night stand on the last night of the former’s trip to Australia. More than a third of people newly living with a partner believed that two months of lockdown felt like the equivalent of two years of commitment. As councillor Phoebe puts it: it is “a fight to cherish the individuality they’re asking us to mask”. This entry was posted in 2021 Books, Cha Review of Books and Films, Issue 46, Lockdown Lovers, Michael O'Sullivan, Michael O'Sullivan, Lockdown Lovers, Penguin Random House SEA, Penguin Random House SEA, Susan Blumberg-Kason. I thought it was quite odd; I had this moment when I realised I was three months into living with my partner and I’ve never said I love you.This Hong Kong McDonald’s, then, is the epitome of “glocal”: a faceless, global corporation and yet undeniably Hong Kong. In an illuminating metaphor he asks: “was there some kind of invisible connection that hung in the air between people at such times? He delivers groceries and medicine to his parents’ porch but the pain is too much when he sees them staring at him from twenty feet away behind the porch door. Lockdown Lovers sheds light on the lockdowns that many of us we were already living, not just in Hong Kong but globally: the academics, scurrying between offices, avoiding social interaction; spouses uprooted hundreds and thousands of miles from home to raise a family and endure “long silent years of isolation”. In the novel, present-day John remembers spending time in the United College Library Archives at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, looking through Hennessy’s letters from Hong Kong.

Lilydale Films, the Australian production company behind hit teen online series Flunk, has released its latest feature Lockdown Lovers. It does mean that there is this kind of closeness that I think I haven’t had in previous relationships.At the same time, John knows he should stay back with Sue and Sam, yet still goes ahead with his trip to Ireland. Lockdown Lovers is available to watch on Vimeo OnDemand and will be launching on streaming service Tubi later in the year.

Kwok-ying is a government health worker who also ends up in the Lamma quarantine centre and who mentions in passing a politician named Carnie Lim in Hong Kong and a leader named Shi in China. Then they had to make a big decision – as outlined by the deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries when she urged non-cohabiting couples to “test the strength of their relationship” and move in together for lockdown. It’s happening because people are feeling very lonely, and they’re very anxious and they need to feel close to somebody. We meet John, who sits in a 24-hour McDonald’s in the Hong Kong suburb of Sai Kung, sipping warm water and ruminating on the state of the city.But for fledgling lockdown relationships across the country, the real test will be in the coming months. I think in normal times, if this had happened, people would have been, like, ‘Well, that’s so quick, why are you rushing into things?

It is this tension between becoming “faceless” ( dismembered) and seen ( re-membered) that drives the novel.It’s that kind of need that you have when you feel under a lot of cortisol stress, and you want to feel as safe as possible next to somebody. After matching, they went on Zoom dates and got to know each other before meeting up in a park just outside of Glasgow.