Review of Last Night (1998) by Nikolai E — 08 Feb 2011

This truly deserves its place near the top of the tragically short list of great home-grown Canadian films. Sometimes it seems like the only thing Canadians know how to make is a high-concept ensemble dramas.

It's a perfectly Canadian thing to do: Pick an easy, one-line hook to hang the film on, and then fill it with all the great local actors you can find (you know for damn sure they're available) turning the set into a democratic melting pot where everyone gets their turn to shine.

That's the theory, anyway. I've seen these films sink (This Beautiful City) and swim (The Red Violin) but I don't think I've ever seen the form utilized with this much mastery before. The links between characters are pleasingly coincidental without feeling contrived, they react to the end of the world in ways that are interesting, diverse, and believable, and the film is fearless with dramatic territory without caving to any of the genre conventions that would have constituted easy choices.

Frankly, one of the most impressive things about the film is how it captured the consumate Canadian apocalypse. Civil, polite, maybe a bit introverted, with looting and chaos on the periphery, but largely replaced by introspection, level-headedness and acquiescence to fate.

I accept this as real. This is a ticking-clock movie, entirely of its own choosing, and that means there's enormous pressure on the final scene to be absolutely perfect, or else what were we waiting 90 minutes for anyway? Well, I think the scene in question is one of the most perfect scenes I've ever come across.

It's simultaneously about the highest stakes imaginable, love, hope, human nature, and the tiniest human details at the same time. In this scene, the human race is held at trial in the form of two people sitting on chairs holding guns.

It's riveting, and it works only because every moment that has gone before has been preparing the way for this. No matter what Don McKellar has done or will do, he made that scene simply as good as it gets.