Today in “The Last Day” is Independence Day, and the weather is changing rapidly, the kind of soft, languid summer heat perfect for a lush garden party. But Rachel Rose’s elegantly restrained and internalized portrayal of the character leaves a chill in her eye. It sharpens the edges of the film’s brightly lit frames and leaves the two protagonists, played nervously by Alicia Vikander and Victoria Pedretti, slightly stiff, unable to surrender to the calm mood of the day. They are both mothers and have a lot to do, holiday or not. Things like arranging caterers, buying groceries, keeping pediatrician appointments, and taking medications. But Rose’s films are not typical depictions of domestic dissatisfaction; they capture something more difficult and less tangible to express: a feeling of being out of touch with one’s life.
“The Last Day” is an adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway,” the second time it has premiered in recent months, but Rose’s riff is even looser than in Chuco and Ally Esiri’s excellent Lagos-set “Clarissa,” which just bowed at Cannes. These films are sufficiently different in concept and narrative direction that their common source material should not be a commercial hindrance. That Woolf’s 1925 novel has inspired two compelling modern interpretations more than a century later is simply a testament to the novel’s philosophical precision and complex feminism. (Knight and Day, starring Haley Bennett, Wolfe’s third adaptation, premiered at SXSW London earlier this month, perhaps in full swing.) With polished production and a sensitive lead performance from Vikander, who rides one of her strongest vehicles since her Oscar win a decade ago, this Tribeca premiere should secure select arthouse distribution.
Rose is a visual artist known for her sensory-driven video installations that explore the relationship between the human condition and the natural world. Although “The Last Day” takes a more traditional narrative form, its style and scope are consistent with that work, beginning with a mesmerizing opening shot of a mother doe and her fawn in the woods of upstate New York, peacefully living in a whispering environment of lush, blissful surroundings, before violently interfacing with our own realm. Eric K. Yue’s rich cinematography is keenly attuned to light and texture, such as the streaks of the sun on an animal’s fur or the blind spots of deep green shadows in a forest, while the equally rigorous sound design isolates, distorts, and eerie what is natural and surrounding.
A few meters away, Julia (Vikander) leaves her impressive colonial home to begin a day of errands and commitments ahead of the annual mass Independence Day gathering with her husband. There are macarons to collect and Botox to fix. Also in town is a terrifying meeting with a literary agent (Marin Ireland) who demands a sequel to the popular book Julia published ten years ago. What Julia doesn’t want to tell her is that marriage and motherhood, along with her father’s recent death, have taken up most of her time, although she’s not entirely happy, and she hasn’t written a word in years.
Today, the party gives her a clear purpose and goal, giving her a semblance of an ordered life. But zoom out a bit and she’s clearly but quietly adrift. It’s hard to maintain that pretense when she runs into fellow writer Peter (a brief, melancholy development by Wagner Moura), with whom she’s not entirely reconciled. And only in the scene with Peter is Vikander’s languid, calm performance – all clearly strained smiles and carefully controlled reactions – allowed to flare briefly and charmingly into anger.
She picks up a wallet accidentally dropped by a stranger in a parking lot, finds an address inside, and adds returning it to her to-do list. The wallet’s owner, Taylor (Pedretti), doesn’t even realize it’s missing between the various stresses of the day and the demands of his two young children. Even before the scene with the doctor explaining it, Pedretti’s performance reveals the raw nerves of a million miles away, as well as the confusing and hollowing effects of postpartum depression, and her frustration at not being fully understood and being gently managed by those around her. Thus, her day, like Julia’s, unfolds without incident on the surface, but nevertheless marks a personal breaking point, made all the more alarming by the fact that no timer was set. The fire department’s test siren cuts through the soundtrack, creating an eerie and eerie sound.
Some viewers may be dissatisfied with the lack of fireworks narrative here, even though the film climaxes with an ironically edited display of Independence Day fireworks. There’s no sense of communal or individual catharsis on offer, as the two women’s arcs collide only briefly, and the story ends, if anything, more elusive than it began. But that unstable, unidentified tension is crucial to Rose, who studies life in passive crisis, nominally holding things together but internally dissipating. Some lucky people may end their “last day” feeling like nothing major happened. Others, like Julia and Taylor, may be plagued by burning emotions they can’t or don’t want to name.
