No on really talks about the COVID lockdowns. They were unprecedented in our lifetimes, leaving us all trapped inside our homes for months on end while putting day-to-day lives on hold. What seemed particularly odd at the time was that television drama on the whole did not reflect that reality at all. A few opportunistic ‘bottle shows’ aside, neither did film. I lost count of the number of times I questioned why characters onscreen were not wearing masks.

Olivier Assayas’ Suspended Time has emerged rather late, some four years after the fact, but it directly focuses on those early lockdowns of 2020. Armed with a strong element of autobiography, it tracks the lockdown in the French countryside of two brothers – one a film director, the other a music journalist – and their partners. It is a familiar experience, capturing the odd tone of the times with remarkable precision. To be honest it almost feels nostalgic.

Paul (Vincent Macaigne) is the older brother, and a self-confessed analogue to Assayas’ own experience. Recently divorced from Flavia (Maud Wyler), the two share a daughter (a spritely Magdalena Lafont) and a fair amount of unresolved tension. (Viewers keen to see the other side of Assayas’ break-up can check out Mia Hansen-Løve’s 2021 drama Bergman Island.) Forced by government policy to isolate from COVID, Paul retreats to a family home in the country with his new girlfriend, documentary maker Morgane (Nina D’Urso).

They are joined by younger brother Etienne (Micha Lescot), also divorced and also with a new girlfriend Carole (Nora Hamzawi). With the brothers back in their childhood home, old patterns of behaviour emerge and they start to bicker. It’s immediately recognisable petty stuff, and a source for a lot of light comedy, but it also feels almost irredeemably male. Truth be told, it is Morgane and Carole who are the most interesting characters here, and both are visibly underused compared to the boys.

There is an element here of Woody Allen-esque intellectual pretense: Paul, for example, is obsessed with quoting painter David Hockney, while the childhood home is a densely packed nest of classical texts and art books. It comes with a strong seam of self-mockery, and almost of pastiche.

Ultimately the element that makes Suspended Time an accurate recollection of the time is also the element that causes it the most problems. Assayas positively nails the emotion of the early pandemic: not just the combination of isolation and low-level paranoia, but also the strange, slippery loss of time. It is reflected in the film’s title. Time passed in lockdown, making it feel as if it ran forever, but at the same time nothing significant really happened in our lives, making it feel like no time passed at all. This odd liminal space is captured brilliantly, but it leaves no room for strong consequence or direct drama.

Suspended Time is excellently produced, with well-formed characters and a canny insight into human behaviour. It also feels inconsequential. It is an enjoyable watch, and acts as a sort of filmic comfort food, but when lined up against Assayas’ stronger works – Irma Vep, The Clouds of Sils Maria, Personal Shopper – it seems destined to be quickly forgotten.

Suspended Time is screening at the 2024 Melbourne International Film Festival. Click here for more information.