Director: Don McKellar
Starring: Don McKellar, Sandra Oh, Callum Keith Rennie, Sarah Polley, David Cronenberg, Genevieve Bujold, Tracy Wright
Related Links
Last Night (1998) - IMDB
Merchandise Links
Buy the video (PAL format)
|
|
What are you planning for the Millenium? Or, more pertinently, what would
you plan if it was the last night on earth? Canadian actor-turned-director
Don McKellar has taken this simple premise and worked it into a haunting and eloquent film examining the emotions and actions of people readying
themselves for The End.
Set over the last six hours of the planet, Last Night follows an interconnected group: family, friends, co-workers, teachers and strangers. Patrick (McKellar) escapes a family "Christmas" dinner to spend his last hours on his own. His friend Craig (Keith Rennie), who has spent the last two months enacting out his every sexual fantasy, is frantically trying to fulfill the last few - including sleeping with his high school French teacher - before time runs out. Sandra is planning to make it home and be with her husband, but with the world gone awry, so do her plans. Her car is trashed, there's no public transport and the countdown has begun.
While Last Night starts out as a millenial horror flick played out against a constant rumble of background anarchy and impending apocalyse, it subtly shifts into a powerful film about interconnecting human relationships. Intelligently acted and with a sly sense of humour, it soon becomes irrelevant why the world is ending: it's the journey that matters, not the destination. And despite the inevitability of Last Night's plot outcome, its finale is surprisingly life-affirming.
McKellar, already one of Canada's leading actors (Exotica, eXistenZ) and a screenwriter of some note (he had a hand in cult classics Roadkill and Highway 61), proves himself an equally adept director. Last Night, his eccentric and quirky movie, propels him into the company of other Canadian filmmakers such as David Cronenberg (who stars in Last Night as a gas company executive), Atom Egoyan and Denys Arcand, who - love them or loathe them - are fully in command of their highly individual vision.
Reviewed by Monika Maurer
Reader comments about Last Night
Grant (Email address withheld) writes:
Last Night is one of my favourite movies because it is so different from all others. It has a structurally slow pace, which is unusual for a film depicting the end of the world, and the sense of acceptance of the characters is admirable. It makes you as the viewer wonder if you would have the dignity to act as relaxed.
The music is a great support for the movie (and the soundtrack is excellent), and the performances are effortless and moving- it actually seems like the actors are the characters, because there are no cheesy lines or over-dramatic moments. It is told simply, acted simply (especially a stand-out performance by Sandra Oh), and concluded simply.
I must say that the ending ranks among my favourite movie finales (if not THE favourite), and it leaves the viewer with a sense of something long after they have finished watching. It's simplicity, purity and honesty make it a movie above the big Hollywood blockbusters, which seem to be churned out like fast-food.
But this is no Happy Meal.
Art (Email address withheld) writes:
I just watched Last Night on IFC and it was moving and dramatic without being overblown and simplistic. I was left with a profound feeling after having watched it. Wondering if I could comprehend the end of existence and act with as much grace as the characters in the film. Wonderful film.
Add your comments about Last Night [About]
|
