Cast: Don McKellar, Sandra Oh, Callum Keith Rennie, David Cronenberg, Tracy Wright, Geneviève Bujold, Roberta Maxwell, Robin Gammell, Sarah Polley
Director: Don McKellar
Producers: Niv Fichman, Daniel Iron
Screenplay: Don McKellar
Cinematography: Douglas Koch
Music: Alexina Louie, Alex Pauk
U.S. Distributor: Lions Gate Films
Of all the movies to be released in recent years about the potential end of the world, it is significant and ironic that the best is the one with both the lowest profile and the smallest budget. That's because Don McKellar's Last Night isn't concerned about the simple "hows" and "whys" of armageddon. Instead, it focuses on far more interesting and existential questions. The film accepts the end as a given - nothing that humankind can do will alter the unstoppable. So, instead of showing space shuttles blasting off to blow apart an asteroid, Last Night stays grounded on Earth, and depicts the final hours of a small group of characters as they struggle to come to grips with their mortality and what life meant, and means, to them. Often in motion pictures, characters don't have pasts; these men and women lack futures.
While there's quite a bit of weighty material to be found in McKellar's script, one of the reasons Last Night succeeds is because it invites a viewer's intellectual participation in the scenario. It's inevitable that anyone watching this movie will ask themselves the obvious questions. What would I do in this situation? How would I say goodbye to my loved ones for a final time? How, or with whom, would I spend my last moments? In a way that is both poignant and poetic, McKellar answers these questions for each of his small contingent of characters; it's up to us to ponder how we would fit into the picture.
Nitpickers will probably not be thrilled by McKellar's approach. He never explains the cause of the world's end. In fact, the lack of evidence is so extreme that it's impossible to hazard a guess. The only clues we have are that there wasn't much time for preparation (only a few months) and that the sun now shines 24 hours a day. Ultimately, however, it doesn't matter why this event is happening, only that it is. Details would have muddled things up, not clarified them. By not getting into specifics, McKellar takes an approach that allows Last Night's focus to be fixed firmly on the characters.
The film opens at 6 pm on December 31, 1999 - six hours before this planet's existence winks out. Of the men and women introduced here, everyone has their own idea of what a perfect last night entails. For Patrick (McKellar), it's abandoning friends and family, going back to his apartment, and listening to music by himself. For Patrick's best friend, Craig (Callum Keith Rennie), the end is a nonstop opportunity for sex fantasy fulfillment. In revolving door fashion, he brings one woman into his home, sleeps with her, then escorts her out before the next arrives. His conquests include a black woman, a former school teacher (Geneviève Bujold), and a thirtysomething virgin. Patrick's parents (Roberta Maxwell, Robin Gammell) spend their last hours at home together, while his sister, Jennifer (Sarah Polley), goes out partying. Meanwhile, one distraught woman, Sandra (Sandra Oh), is having trouble getting home to her husband (David Cronenberg). A series of misfortunes befalls her, and, with public transportation non-functional and taxis ignoring fares, her chances of making her way across Toronto look bleak until she hooks up with Patrick.
The Canadian filmmaking community is a small and incestuous one, so many of the participants in Last Night will be familiar to those who have seen a Canadian film or two in recent years. The writer/director/actor, behind the camera for the first time, is Don McKellar, who was involved in scripting both 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould and The Red Violin, and appeared in Atom Egoyan's Exotica. As a woman who is desperate for human companionship during her last hours, Sandra Oh (from Mina Shum's Double Happiness) gives Last Night's most effective performance. Filmmaker David Cronenberg (Dead Ringers, eXistenZ) plays Sandra's husband - a man so devoted to his job that he spends much of December 31 calling customers to let them know that their gas will remain on until the very end. Finally, Sarah Polley (who has had a breakout year) and Geneviève Bujold have small, supporting roles.
Last Night succeeds where so many other films have failed because it concentrates on the element that its predecessors have ignored: the human factor. It's only mildly diverting to watch end-of-the-world pyrotechnics, but it's endlessly fascinating to observe how seemingly normal people react to a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. While wisely keeping his perspective narrow and limiting his canvas to the lives of a few characters, McKellar nevertheless manages to capture aspects of every possible reaction, from nihilism and anarchy to stoic acceptance. And the film ends on a note that wraps everything up in a satisfying manner. McKellar doesn't cheat his characters, and, more importantly, he doesn't cheat his audience. This is a fine debut.
© 1999 James Berardinelli