Topically evoking fears of the millennium bug, this Canadian indie movie takes a wry, quirky look at how different people choose to spend their final hours before a global wipe-out.
McKellar, who also writes and directs, stars as the self-effacing Patrick, an architect who is obliged to visit his parents only to be faced with Christmas dinner and all his old toys wrapped up as presents. On his return home, he finds a strange woman on his doorstep. She is Sandra (Oh), who is desperate to get home so she can commit suicide with her husband Duncan (David Cronenberg), only her car has been trashed.
Patrick and Sandra walk the deserted, rubbish-strewn streets looking for transport and wind up at the apartment of Patrick's friend Craig (Rennie), who has been entertaining a steady flow of women with brandy and his body in a two-month bid to fulfil his lengthy list of sexual fantasies. One of these is reluctant virgin Donna who works at the gas company with Duncan.
By constantly interconnecting his protagonists' stories, McKellar provides a guessing game as to who knows who and why. There are shades of Jim Jarmusch and Aki Kaurismaki in the spare, ironic style of the film, with characters often not reacting as expected. For some of them, doomsday inspires selfish liberation, while others discover a sense of purpose.
