Last Night (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Last Night | |
|---|---|
 Last Night DVD cover |
|
| Directed by | Don McKellar |
| Written by | Don McKellar |
| Starring | Don McKellar Sandra Oh Roberta Maxwell Robin Gammell |
| Cinematography | Douglas Koch |
| Editing by | Reginald Harkema |
| Distributed by | Lions Gate Films |
| Release date(s) | 1998 |
| Running time | 95 minutes |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2,000,000 (estimated) |
| IMDb profile | |
Last Night is a 1998 Canadian film by Don McKellar. It was filmed in Toronto.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Last Night tells the story of how a variety of characters spending their remaining evening on Earth: the world is to end at midnight (Eastern Standard Time) as the result of a calamity that is not explained, but which has been expected for several months. ("It's not the end of the world... there's still six hours left.") Several scenes of a glowing sun, which gets progressively larger and brighter, imply that the end of the world is the result of a celestial event, possibly a supernova. It has also been suggested that the world has consolidated to standardize on a specific calendar, culminating in the end of the world at the zero hour ("midnight") for each separate time zone, explaining the "daylight at night" phenomenon.
Some people in the film choose to spend their last evening alone, others with loved ones, others in prayer, and others at public festivities. A power company worker (David Cronenberg) spends the majority of his final day calling up every single one of his customers to reassure them that their heating gas will be kept on until the very end. Meanwhile, his wife (Sandra Oh) prepares to fulfill their suicide pact when she becomes stranded with a depressed widower (Don McKellar) preparing to die while listening to music on his roof, surrounded by mementoes of his recently deceased wife. The widower's best friend (Callum Keith Rennie) participates in a nearly non-stop sex marathon as he attempts to fulfill every fantasy he has ever had. Sarah Polley appears as a member of a family that has a final meal together, in which the elderly ask the question, essentially: Why worry about the children, they won't know what they'll be missing, and we will. Jackie Burroughs makes an appearance as an apparently mentally disturbed woman who jogs around announcing how much time is left before the end. Arsinée Khanjian also appears as a mother on an abandoned Streetcar (tram) who is paralyzed by despair.
[edit] Awards
Among its 12 awards, it won the "Award of the Youth" at the Cannes Film Festival, "Best Canadian First Feature Film" at the Toronto International Film Festival, and three Genie Awards: the "Claude Jutra Award for Director" Don McKellar, and the Genies for "Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role" (Sandra Oh) and "Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role" (Callum Keith Rennie).
[edit] Cast
- Don McKellar as Patrick Wheeler
- Geneviève Bujold as Mrs. Carlton
- David Cronenberg as Duncan
- Arsinée Khanjian as Streetcar Mother
- Sandra Oh as Sandra
- Sarah Polley as Jennifer 'Jenny' Wheeler
- Callum Keith Rennie as Craig Zwiller
