If you’re the type of person who watches movies to escape reality for a couple of hours, the new thriller Songbird, from STX Films, is probably not for you.
The film stars Colombian American actress and singer Sofia Carson (Descendants franchise) as Sara Garcia, a young woman living in Los Angeles who is at the center of a major health crisis.
At the beginning of the trailer, we see Sara speaking to her boyfriend Nico (K.J. Apa) over video chat on her cell. She tells him that she wants to kiss him. “Yeah, well…someday,” is his response.
The reason they won’t be locking lips any time sooner? The world has been devastated by the outbreak of a new virus, COVID-23, which attacks the brain tissue and has killed 110 million people worldwide. A billboard in L.A. shows the death toll at just over 8.4 million.
Locked down in her apartment for the last 213 weeks (over four years), Sara is trying to come to terms with her “grim new reality” that the virus may never be eradicated. A voiceover explains that “all infected Americans are being forced into quarantine camps.”
Sara is frightened when the Department of Sanitation comes into her apartment building wearing Hazmat suits and takes one of her neighbors. Another neighbor, played by Peruvian-American actress Carol Abney (TV’s Parenthood), stumbles into Sara’s apartment where they learn she is infected.
Now, with her immune boyfriend on his way to try to save her, Sara must protect herself and her neighbor before government officials get to them first. “Stay safe, sane and sanitized,” the head of the Department of Sanitation says before making a hand gesture to mimic a gun firing.
The film also stars actress Jenna Ortega (TV’s Jane the Virgin) as Izzy, an unknown character as of now.