My favorite dystopia is Soylent Green; that’s the one that really speaks to me. The population grew; we suppressed our urge to control the population through war, and resources dwindled all the same … so we eat the dead. Makes perfect sense. Classic mystery/horror. Few can argue that population growth is sustainable right now. Even climate change deniers can imagine a future in which resources are limited, right? Well, maybe not everyone. I suppose if you can somehow manage to picture a flat Earth, you can also manage to picture a sustainable Earth, no matter how many human beings inhabit the thing.
It is the year 2073 and the world has put aside national squabbles enough to enact a universal piece of global fascism: One child per family. Failing to ask themselves what kind of monstrous society would we become if every child were the eldest, the world up and decided the Chinese were right to put a family cap, except in 2073, the Child Allocation Bureau can enforce with a vengeance. All superfluous sibs are collected and put into cryosleep until we can figure out what to do with them.
Oh, and get this, the scientific planet-feeding advancements have inadvertently led to fertilized ova-splitting side effects. In other words, the more modern food you eat, the more likely you will birth multiple babies at the same time. Karen Settman dies giving birth to identical septuplets and grandpa Terrence (Willem Dafoe) decides to raise them all and pose them as the same child for public purposes. How he gets away with this is left to the viewer’s imagination. In fact, how he rears seven babies by himself in a world that allows for just one debunks the sci-fi right then and there as far as I’m concerned.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume they all did make it to adult age without being discovered. Terrence names the children after the days of the week, which corresponds to when each child is allowed to visit daylight. Isn’t that convenient? And, geez, how would you like to be Monday? Forever the scourge of 96-year-old Garfield (7.3 Million in cat years).
Noomi Rapace has the task of playing the seven adult Settman siblings. After having to endure Bright, it would be easy of me to say Noomi has the unique misfortune of delivering seven bad performances. This, however, isn’t true. I’d say only Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and half of Sunday were true phone-ins. So, maybe Noomi gets 2.5 out of 7 on her report card. I am baffled to know where she thinks she’s going with that accent, on each woman no less. Raised by Willem Dafoe and yet somehow all seven women talk like they’re still adjusting to English via some sort of Eastern European exchange. It’s called acting, Noomi. You don’
t get to be dragon tattoo girl in every film.
One day on her collective big city job, Monday disappears, and the six are left pondering (naturally) What Happened to Monday? It cannot be emphasized enough how big a deal this is. Monday was wearing the collective ID bracelet. Monday was the public face. Any of the six caught outside their hidey-hole would be detained and cryowhupped immediately. How are six Noomis going to locate, collect, and return a seventh Noomi without their fascist state figuring out whazzup?
I liked the feel and the plot of What Happened to Monday. However, the execution requires a highly skilled actress. While this combination of Soylent Green and “Orphan Black” is intriguing, Noomi Rapace is about as close to the talent level of Tatiana Maslany as Lindsay Lohan. I also felt very let down by the climax of this film. It requires a certain callous that fails to match any of the previous action. I’m chalking this week up to an ambitious mistake.
♪Monday’s child fell off the pace
Tuesday’s clone took up her place
Wednesday’s dupe was quite the troll
Thursday’s crone phoned-in her role
Friday’s tool advanced the plot
Saturday’s fool was different … not!
But the stiff listed here as Sunday
Made no impression either way♫
Rated TV-MA, 123 Minutes
Director: Tommy Wirkola
Writer: Max Botkin, Kerry Williamson
Genre: Our screwed future
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Noomi Rapace, seven times
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Those of us on the Soylent Green Diet
♪ Parody Inspired by “Monday’s Child”
