If you were to go through my movie collection, you would find an eclectic mix of films. One of the most prevalent in the mix of genres & sub-genres, I have many that are post apocalyptic/futuristic dystopian world films. Its the kind of film I love exploring, as its a look at not only our possible future, but a look at ourselves now, and where we are heading should we continue down certain paths.
In the tradition of some of the great films like the classics Blade Runner, and Total Recall, to more modern tales like Equilibrium, and Children of Men comes What Happened to Monday.
Set in a future where food resources are drastically low due to overpopulation, a sinister organization responsible for implementing a one-child policy by taking all subsequent sibling to be cryogenically frozen until such a time when resources are enough to cover everyone.
Terrence Settman (Dafoe) finds himself in a rather precarious position with the birth of sextuplets, granddaughters, whose mother dies during labour. Naming them after each day of the week, he makes the dangerous decision of taking them all in to his care, raising them in secret, and taking all necessary precautions to ensure that they live in secret.
When the girls have grown to an age where he feels comfortable, and confident that they are aware of the dangers of the outside world, and the consequences of anything that could mean the secret being uncovered, he allows each girl to go out on the day after which they were named, ie; Monday on Monday, Tuesday on Tuesday, and so on, and so forth. The girls each live their day outside as one Karen Settman.
As is the case with any group of children, the girls exhibit an array of personality traits from shy and demure to outgoing and rebellious, with the rebel of the seven causing a uncomfortable, and lasting, consequence for the other six siblings when she goes out on a day that she was not designated to do so, and suffers a painful injury.
Fast forward some 30 years we find that the girls have grown to adulthood successfully in secret, and while inside they exhibit their own personalities, do their own thing, and keep their own interests, they work very well together maintaining the life of Karen Settman out in the world. This is largely down to nightly debriefings from the one who went out that day, so that the others are aware of their role to maintain their cover.
This all works perfectly until Monday doesn't come home from work, leaving her sisters extremely worried about what could have happened to her, and Tuesday going blind to what is waiting for her outside, with no knowledge of the previous days happenings. It is now up to Tuesday and her sisters to figure out what happened to Monday.
The thing I love most about this film is it's concept, its what I love about the genre in general, as a dystopian future story can lend itself to anything that can cause a dystopia to happen, over population causing implementation of restricted breeding, or emotions being banned so that people don't fight, and cause war.
I also love the performances of Noomi, and Clara in the two stages of the girls' lives, the seven nuanced personalities demanded such range from both to capture the essence of the seven sisters, but also the prime character of Karen.
What also impressed me about this film, is the way in which the seven different characters were juxtaposed in the scenes they were together in. In no way was this done cheaply, or nasty, and definitely did not come off cheesy.
