That an IMDb user gave this one star and called it “an LGBTQ+ movie disguised as a sci-fi” makes me like it even more.

The first feature from producer Mel Eslyn (Your Sister’s Sister (2011)) is hard not to love, for all its quirky, topical, warm hearted artifice. Billy (Mark Duplass) and Ray (Sterling K Brown) are the only two people left alive after an unnamed apocalypse that Billy, as US president at the time, is somehow responsible for. As Eslyn said in an artist talk at the Wheeler Centre the day after I watched this, if the world was to end, of course, the only two surviving people would be men who would be somehow responsible for it.

They live in a biosphere, designed by Ray, and bicker, play Mario Kart, and tick off their daily chores. It seems their survival and existence is perfectly balanced until one small thing knocks it off kilter.

I won’t divulge the details – it’s enough to say that there are plenty of laughs, but the undercurrent, and metaphor, are as topical as it comes. Regardless of the plot, it’s the relationship between these two men that the story is really about. And yes, they are horrible, but Eslyn allows us to relate to them. She shows us forgiveness, and memory, and hope, and identity. I’m a big fan of Duplass, but it is Brown who really steals the show. He is enigmatic and a good foil to Duplass’s fussy anxieties.

It seems to be a film that could only be made by a woman as it plays with notions of gender and sexuality in a particular way. It’s enough to have angered quite a few IMDb users. Eslyn said she made it as a sci-fi (“because everyone love sci-fi”) so that it would attract people to see it who might find its themes challenging and it seems she may have hit a nerve. And that’s a good thing.

Director: Mel Eslyn
Origin: USA (2022)
Language: English
Genre: Comedy , Sci-Fi

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