Last Night (1998)

This film takes place on 31st December in Toronto during the final six hours before an anticipated global catastrophe, which is due to happen at midnight. The year is not stated, but it feels very turn-of-the-millennium, especially based on its release date. What is coming is never explained - the what, the why or the how. When interviewed, director Don McKellar said that the perpetual sun, even near midnight, implies some kind of cosmic event, like a shift in Earth's axis, the Earth heading into the Sun or a supernova! But as we find out later, it doesn't really matter much.

The initial waves of panic, rioting and social chaos have passed (so presumably people had plenty of notice before the film's 6pm start time), leaving a quiet, eerie calm as ordinary people choose how to spend their last hours. We follow a group of individuals, focusing on the drama unfolding around and between them.

Sandra, played quite brilliantly by Sandra Oh (Killing Eve, Grey's Anatomy), is trying to get across town to meet her husband, Duncan, played by the David Cronenberg (The Shrouds, Shivers, The Brood, The Fly). He's not in it much - more of a cameo, really, as the head of the local gas company - so they can fulfil a formal suicide pact together at midnight. She leaps from disaster to disaster on her quest to get to him, eventually hooking up with Patrick Wheeler, played by Don McKellar (eXistenZ, Blindness), a grieving widower who wants nothing more than to spend his final hours completely alone in his apartment. He leaves an awkward 'last xmas' dinner with his family and avoids his hedonistic best friend Craig, played by Callum Keith Rennie (Star Trek: Discovery, Memento), who is systematically crossing off every item on his sexual fantasy bucket list by shagging one woman each hour!

Amidst this chaos, Sandra's car gets written off, which is why she ends up with Patrick, who reluctantly tries to help her reach her husband. In a nutty subplot, Patrick is also wildly attracted to her (and maybe she, him)! Meanwhile, husband Duncan remains stuck at work, meticulously calling every gas customer to assure them their utility service will stay on right until midnight.

The early scenes in Patrick's house are remarkably well-observed and funny as the family tries to pretend that the end of the world is 'like' xmas. It must therefore be treated as such, complete with a huge turkey dinner, a decorated room and wrapped presents containing family mementos from the past, accompanied by plenty of reminiscing. The two old ladies in this scene are genuinely funny, too. So anyway, we race across town with Sandra and Patrick, interrupted by Craig here and there, fending off people behaving badly with no inhibitions - given there are clearly no consequences left for their actions.

So what's it all about, apart from the obvious blurb above? McKellar left the details of what was happening unstated because he felt sci-fi explanations would distract from the film's core theme: if humanity has no power to stop the end, the how and why don't matter. What matters is how we treat one another when there are no long-term consequences left. The bright, washed-out sunlight reflects the fact that there are no 'dark corners' left to hide in and the tragedy of the characters' focus isn't dying - it's dying alone. A suicide pact, fear, obligation, warmth, vulnerability and the human touch in the final hours of existence.

Sandra Oh's performance as Sandra earned her the Genie Award for Best Actress (Canada's highest film honour at the time), apparently. Her frantic energy provides the perfect foil to Don McKellar’s deadpan, introverted performance. David Cronenberg’s character's quiet, tragic obsession with customer service during the apocalypse is one of the film’s best subplots. The supporting cast features a raft of Canadian icons, including a young Sarah Polley (Dawn of the Dead, eXistenZ) as Patrick’s rebellious sister Jennifer and Callum Keith Rennie delivering that delightfully wacko performance as Craig!

Made on a modest budget of $2.2 million CAD, its claustrophobic, ambient Toronto soundscapes and overexposed cinematography were designed specifically to stretch every dollar. And a final bit of trivia: Edgar Wright cited Last Night as a key influence on the tone for Shaun of the Dead, showing how mundane, everyday human behaviours persist even in catastrophic settings.

It's a darkly funny take on the apocalypse, sad here and there, poignant and moving at times, but always prioritising human connection over Hollywood mega-disaster tropes! It is certainly worth a watch, and the hour and a half flew by as we await the deadline to see what happens! Available on physical media if you can track it down, widely available on streaming in North America, and at the time of writing, someone has uploaded it to YouTube as well.