Handle with Extreme Care

A frank and often morbidly funny account of daily life for a New York mortuary struggling to provide a resting place for the dead at the height of the Covid crisis.

A divorced funeral director swipes his way through diminishing prospects on Tinder. An employee prepares his father for a final goodbye. And a business dealing in the dead faces escalating demand as a result of the pandemic. Patrick Ginnetty and Bowie Alexander’s darkly humorous film offers a different perspective on what life was like as the Covid crisis reached a critical point. Like so many other mortuaries in New York, the subject of Ginnetty and Alexander’s documentary is stretched to its limit, with all who work there challenged by the physical and emotional burden of their job. What makes Handle with Extreme Care stand out from other portraits of Covid-era films is the frankness by which it juxtaposes seismic events with people’s attempts to carry on with their lives.