“People are always saying, ‘The children. Pity the children.’ I’m tired of the children. They haven’t lived, given birth, watched their friends die. I have invested 80 years in this life. The children don’t know what they’re missing.”
Don McKellar’s 1998 masterpiece Last Night (not to be confused with the 2010 Keira Knightley romance of the same name) remains a hidden gem of cinema. Before diving in, however, there are two important things you should know.
First, the film is only “obscure” if you are outside of Canada. Within its home country, it stands as a celebrated cornerstone of independent film, boasting a powerhouse cast that served as a glimpse into the future of acting, featuring legends like Sandra Oh, Callum Keith Rennie, David Cronenberg, Sarah Polley, and Geneviève Bujold. For Canadians, asking if someone has seen Last Night is much like asking an American if they are familiar with Kevin Smith’s Clerks.
Second, this is not a casual, “background noise” kind of movie. While some databases categorize it as a black comedy, that label is misleading; it possesses wit, certainly, but it is fundamentally a somber, haunting, and deeply evocative drama. It is a film that lingers in your mind long after the final credits roll.
The narrative unfolds during the final six hours before the apocalypse. While the specific cataclysm is never explicitly defined, the world is bathed in an eerie, eternal daylight—a celestial glow hinting that the end is truly at hand. The story follows a cross-section of residents in Toronto as they reconcile with their final moments. By now, the impending doom has become common knowledge, pushing society past the point of mass hysteria and into a state of quiet, resigned numbness.
The city has largely ground to a halt; some citizens are desperately racing through bucket lists, others are huddled in domestic solace, and a few are celebrating the end of existence with a reckless, hedonistic fervor.
At the center of this are Patrick (McKellar), a man who seeks solitary peace, and Sandra (Oh), who finds herself stranded in his neighborhood after vandals ruin her vehicle. Driven by a desperate need to reunite with her husband, Duncan (Cronenberg), before time runs out, Sandra finds an unlikely companion in Patrick. Their journey across a fraying Toronto acts less like a traditional road movie and more like a melancholy, documentarian observation of humanity facing its expiration date.
Watching these characters traverse a society that is literally and metaphorically dissolving, you cannot help but reflect on your own hypothetical final hours. It is an uncomfortable yet profound exercise in empathy.
Nearly three decades later, Last Night remains singular. While later films like Seeking a Friend for the End of the World attempted to cover similar ground through a lens of farce, McKellar’s work opts for something more authentic and intimate. It is a haunting exploration of the end times that promises to stay with you for years. If you have yet to witness this Canadian classic, it is well worth tracking down on Prime Video.
Source: Polygon
