Last Night
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DVD details
Actor: David Cronenberg, François Girard, Geneviève Bujold, Jessica Booker, Robin GammellBrand: Lions Gate
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 95 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-08-19
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Lions Gate
DVD Reviews of Last Night
DVD Review: Apocalypse Canadian-style
Summary: 4 Stars
I saw this when it originally came out; I think actually it was at a film festival. I was thinking that it was originally commissioned as part of a project called "2000 Seen By..." in which a whole bunch of directors around the world made films about the end of the millenium, but I don't see any info on that. I think it must have premiered in Chicago at the same time as some of that series which I saw, thus the confusion in my mind after 11 years. At any rate, it has a "millenial" feel even if the exact date isn't mentioned, and I liked it then and even more on this viewing.
It's not just the end of the world as we know it, it's the end of the world period, but we (mostly) still feel fine. Or at least...resigned and OK about it. Director-writer Don McKellar plays Patrick Wheeler, a successful architect who lives alone in a high-rise in Toronto, and at the beginning of the film he's going to a "Christmas" dinner with his family, who he's been somewhat estranged from it seems; after that he plans to return home to await the end, which will occur at midnight. As I said, the date isn't given, but it might be around Christmas-time, though it's warm and the sun is bright in the sky throughout the night. Presumably the sun is about to go supernova and burn the planet up - certainly the only logical explanation for a warm, bright and green Toronto in the winter!
Patrick soon runs across Sandra (Sandra Oh), trying to get back to her husband to be with him at the end. Her car has been wrecked by vandals and she lives on the other side of town; public transportation and cabs are nonexistant at this point. Patrick doesn't really want to help her at first, quite selfishly (but understandably if you think about it) wanting his end to be what he had designed - but through events and his own deeper selflessness he becomes involved in trying to help her through most of the rest of the film. We also drop in on Craig (Callum Keith Rennie) who is trying to satisfy as many sexual fantasies as he can before the end; Duncan (David Cronenberg), a gas company manager who is personally calling all of his customers to with them farewell; a mother and daughter (Arsinée Khanjian and Chandra Muszka) sitting desolately on an abandoned streetcar, and a few other disparate characters, most of whom in the end wind up having connections to each other that weren't at first apparent.
Canadian cinema fans will no doubt recognize a lot of people involved in the film - with the Cronenberg connection and Khanjian (Atom Egoyan's wife and principle collaborator), Oh and Sarah Polley (as Patrick's sister) among others it has the feeling of a "Canada's greatest hits" cast, but I think that's entirely appropriate - the film as a whole takes a very different approach to the looming catastrophe than something like ARMAGEDDON, released the same year. I don't know how conscious McKellar was of this, but the film strikes me in some ways as a rebuke to the notion that we have to approach the end - of life or of the world - with anger, violence, madness - or with the notion that we can save ourselves no matter what the scientists tell us. Although plenty of fear and negative emotions and violence exist in the film, we're also constantly reminded that many Torontians are approaching the end with grace and dignity, and somehow in this film that actually seems logical and realistic. I could be reading too much into it I suppose, but through the various coincidences and the spectacularly wonderful - yet wholly predictable, if you really divine what the film is reaching for - ending, we see people searching for, and often finding, hope and forgiveness and love in the face of the end. Certainly a very different sort of "armageddon" than the ones we typically see in the multiplexes.
The film wouldn't have worked at all if not for the two leads; at first I wasn't crazy about Patrick, who seems a little too snobbish and bitchy to be quite believable at the end of the world - but eventually both through the revelation of his past and McKellar's general underplaying he becomes more compelling. Oh is terrific, and for once her long, sad face is utterly appropriate; in the finale she is absolutely radiant when at last she finds the strength to smile and to feel something other than loss, if only for the last second.
Although some of the secondary characters seem like they could have/should have been fleshed out a bit more to me (Sarah Polley's in particular) and there's a bit of a rushed quality, overall this is a beautiful and sensitive and warmly humanistic film, a low-key corrective to the notion that we have to approach "the end" kicking and screaming, something that's all too rare in the context of it's subject matter - and in general. Nice soundtrack choices as well.
Description of Last Night
LAST NIGHT - DVD MovieApocalyptic visions can take many forms, from atomic to cosmic disaster, from cautionary tale to sardonic despair, comets, asteroids, plague. But when it comes to the end of the world, one expects fire or ice, bang or whimper. Rarely does this genre focus on the area between those two extremes, as it does brilliantly in Don McKellar's Last Night, a wry tale exploring the effects of the world's imminent demise on a group of characters in Toronto. No panic ensues, no looting, no gnashing of teeth or elaborate schemes to forestall disaster. Well, that may be happening somewhere, but certainly not in Toronto. Here the radio counts down the top 500 hits of all time. The clock ticks by the evening hours while daylight fails to wane. Everywhere, people prepare for the end in ways that range from the mundane to the winsome. The principal action throws together Patrick (McKellar), a dejected young man who plans on spending the end alone listening to music, with Sandra (Sandra Oh), whose plans to spend the end with her husband (David Cronenberg) are thwarted by lack of transportation. Meanwhile, Patrick's friend Craig (Callum Keith Rennie) is fulfilling every sexual fantasy he's ever had. Love the one you're with is the message here. The real star is the tone of the picture, which is distanced and ironic and masterfully maintained throughout. Sarah Polley and Geneviève Bujold appear in supporting roles. It's the directorial debut of actor McKellar (Exotica, eXistenZ), who also scripted The Red Violin. --Jim Gay
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