52 Films by Women Vol 2. 23. END OF DAYS, INC. (Director: Jennifer Liao)
How many films, plays and novels have been written by women
about the end of the world? My initial presumption is that they have far more
important things to worry about. The real reason - without being flip - is that
there aren’t any feminist utopian texts either. However, to go back to
dystopia, only Margaret Atwood’s The
Handmaid’s Tale, Suzanne Collins’ The
Hunger Games and P.D. James’ Children
of Men spring to mind. In any case, women didn’t write novels about the
nuclear threat – they protested vigorously outside army bases instead, as the
Greenham Common women proved to their credit in the early 1980s.
End of Days, Inc, a black comedy written by Christina Ray and
directed by Jennifer Liao, is a rare example, especially as the films of all
the above novels were made by men. Ostensibly it is an office comedy, in which
the four employees of Godfrey Global Inventory are invited to a party on their
last day of work. Misty (Janet Porter) would like to go on a cruise, or have
sex with the handsome delivery guy in the stationery cupboard, whichever comes
first – the cruise is more likely. Perky singleton Janet (Carolyne Maraghi) who
lives at home with her grandmother is bitterly disappointed. Get-ahead
brown-noser Jason (Mark O’Brien) wants to continue his relationship with the
boss after the company folds, whilst hard-working Mort (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) wants
recognition for his eleven year service and doesn’t have the inclination for a
party.
Their employer, Mr Godfrey (Paulino Nunes) who runs the
company with his much older sister, Esther (Anna Ferguson) is no ordinary
capitalist and Godfrey Global Inventory no ordinary company. The time-cards
that the employees dispose of between party games represent whole nations. As
the cards are destroyed, fire rages outside. Natural disasters occur.
Strangely, the power supply doesn’t fade.
It takes a while for the employees to twig that something is
up and only do so after Mort ends up dead – the name is a give-away. He is in
fact returned to the group but is unable to perform to his optimum capacity.
Once they realise something is wrong, the group tries to take back control by
luring Esther away from the company’s only working phone, recruiting the cleaning
lady, Oola (Yulia Petrauskas) to their cause.
There is some gore – but the film makes light of the end of
civilization as we know it. Don McKellar’s 1998 film, Last Night, about a group
of Toronto citizens who await The End, is an interesting point of comparison.
The central joke is as much about visions of the end of the
world as it is about how the characters react. It is entirely understandable
that the end would be brought about by activity in an office rather than
missiles, religious difference or itchy dictators from Asia. It is where most
of the middle class spend their time, in front of computer screens.
How funny is it? Mort’s transformation provides some mild
chuckles, as does Misty summoning her colleagues for a meeting in the
afore-mentioned broom cupboard, where Mort discovers a used condom and
investigates its properties. Interestingly the film isn’t about a moral descent
for earthly riches. It is about the struggle against a fait accompli – or whatever they call it in French speaking Canada.
Times are allotted for party games (‘duck, duck, goose’) and questions and
answers where employees are also quizzed.
The performances are heightened in a way that is perfectly
acceptable in a comedy. I mean, you can’t do ‘end of the world’ and naturalism
– what can you measure it against? I guess we’ll never know. Paulino Nunes is
the spitting image of Stanley Tucci, who has played his share of bad guys and
Jason is as morally loose as men with his aspirations usually are in American
comedies.
The more interesting question is this: to what extent does
Canada produce commercial cinema? Whilst Canadian production companies and
individuals produce high-grossing films, these movies (like Bob Clark’s Porky’s in 1982) aren’t identified as
Canadian. End of Days, Inc exists in
an odd niche. It is unashamedly Canadian and aimed at a domestic market. It is
also too tame to compete with American black comedies like This Is The End – and certainly doesn’t have the star power or
production budget. Even one of the best known Canadian English language movies,
The Terry Fox Story, is a television
movie, though released in the UK in cinemas. Jennifer Liao isn’t working in a
domestic industry that offers huge commercial returns. Nor is she an ‘arthouse’
director like Don McKellar, Patricia Rozema or Denys Arcand. It will be
interesting to track the career that she has and the extent to which the
Canadian Film Industry can nurture more mainstream talent.
Reviewed at Quad
Cinema, Derby (‘The Box’), Derby Film Festival, 17:25 screening, Monday 1 May
2017
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