‘Totally Under Control’ Trailer: Alex Gibney’s COVID-19 Exposé Couldn’t Be More Timely

By Claire Spellberg @c_spellberg
Published Oct. 2, 2020, 12:32 p.m. ET

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COVID-19

Less than 12 hours after President Donald Trump announced that he has tested positive for COVID-19, NEON has released the official trailer for Alex Gibney’s Totally Under Control, a documentary that uncovers the Trump administration’s failure to address the pandemic. Filmed in secret over five months in early 2020, Gibney’s new documentary exposes just how out of control the president’s COVID-19 response really was and the deadly consequences his cavalier attitude had on everyday Americans.

As the trailer makes clear, Totally Under Control begins on January 20, 2020, the day that the United States discovered its first case of COVID-19, and follows the Trump administration’s pandemic response throughout the weeks and months to come. “As the presidential election nears, Americans are increasingly enraged by a lack of clear leadership, endemic political corruption and left to wonder how did the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world manage to fail so thoroughly in its response to a global pandemic?” reads NEON’s official description.

To answer this question, co-directors Gibney, Ophelia Harutyunyan, and Suzanne Hillinger have turned to America’s leading scientists, public health officials, and former Trump aides who are now willing to go on the record about the administration’s mismanagement of the virus. “We, the scientists, knew what to do for the pandemic response,” says one interviewee in the Totally Under Control trailer. “But leadership would not do it. It is time to lay our careers on the line and push back.”

Others interviewed explain “the truth” of the matter to filmmakers. “Political leaders caused avoidable death and destruction,” says one official. “The scientists sounded the alarm every day,” adds another. “The U.S. government was doing nothing.”

In order to stress that point, NEON’s trailer intercuts these sobering interviews with clips of Trump downplaying the threat of the virus. “One day, it’s like a miracle. It will disappear,” the president once said of the virus, which has now claimed over 200,000 American lives. “It’ll be wonderful. It’ll be a gift from heaven.”

Ultimately, one interviewee seems to sum up Totally Under Control‘s thesis best. “It’s complete bullshit,” he says of Trump’s COVID-19 response. “He has no idea what he’s talking about.”

Totally Under Control premieres on demand October 13, one week before its Hulu debut on October 20. Watch the official trailer above.