Review of Last Night (1998) by Lanning : — 01 May 2007

So what would you do if you knew the world were coming to an end? It's that kind of question younger friends might ask when they've had few. You know what I mean, right? Hey, Craig, this is set in Toronto.

What would you do if you knew you were in the final hours of your life? Me? I have no clue. But I can almost guarantee you that I would probably be doing not one of the things the folks in this movie choose to do.

That, however, is not one of my problems with Last Night. Now when I say I have problems with Last Night, I want to preface my grievances with this: I have seen this movie probably half-a-dozen times -- or more.

In order for me to give up that many hours of my life to one movie, the movie needs to be pretty powerfully affecting. Last Night is that and then some. The final montage of the "end" for the people we've been following is very moving.

No, my problems with Last Night lie elsewhere. I'll spare you a blow-by-blow, but I'll give you two pet peeves. First -- and this is about as petty as a pet peeve can get -- I am tremendously irritated by the fact that the world ends exactly at midnight.

That's right, flixster friends, the world ends at 12:00 a.m. on the proverbial dot. And I think we all know that this is exactly how nature works . . . Okay, so that's a minor irritation. My major irritation is -- and I hate to be down on a fellow Korean -- Sandra Oh.

I'm not universally down on Sandra Oh, but I am very specifically down on her here. Everyone is delivering lines in a truly believable way -- everyone except Sandra Oh. Is it her? The director? I don't think it can be the director.

The directing, to me, is brilliant. If the directing truly sucked, everyone in Last Night would be acting as oddly as Oh. She's caught up in her own mind, I believe, with the "seriousness" of the end of the world, and for some peculiar reason, she feels she has to deliver all of her lines accordingly.

It's not that she's over the top. It's more like she's stilted in her seriousness-ness. Sorry, Sister Oh, but that's the way I see it. Overall, however, -- and I really mean it -- this movie is well worth the watch.