Review: What Happened to Monday (2017)
Directed by: Tommy Wirkola | 123 minutes | action, crime, drama | Actors: Noomi Rapace, Glenn Close, Willem Dafoe, Marwan Kenzari, Christian Rubeck, Pål Sverre Hagen, Tomiwa Edun, Cassie Clare, Cameron Jack, Clara Read, Kirsty Averton, Lucy Pearson, Nadiv Molcho
The year is 2043. Overpopulation is causing worldwide famine and suffering. Humanity is turning to genetically modified food to feed the exploding number of people. But this is not without consequences: the GM food causes the birth of multiple births and genetic defects. Therefore, a law is passed, The Child Allocation Act, which allows people to have only one child. The rest of the children are frozen for when better times come. In this world a seepuplets are born and, in secret, raised.
In ‘What Happened to Monday?’, Director Tommy Wirkola (‘Dead Snow’, ‘Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters’) brings to life a dystopian future where a seepuplets, who are not allowed to exist, secretly tries lead. Karen Settman dies while giving birth to an identical septuplets (Noomi Rapace). Her father, Terrence Settman (Willem Dafoe) finds a way to hide the birth from the Child Allocation Bureau, the executive of the Child Allocation Act, and raise them on their own. Since they are seepuplets, he names each of them a weekday. Thirty years later, they live well together and are well attuned to each other. However, one day Monday will not come home. Afraid of being discovered by the Child Allocation Bureau, led by scientist Nicolette Cayman (Glenn Close) and assisted by the sadistic Jerry (Pål Sverre Hagen), the other six investigate and unravel a mystery that daylight does not exist. can endure.
It seems as if the story of “What Happened to Monday” took the idea of China’s One-Child policy as its starting point and turned it into a society where a repressive regime forcefully compels people to obedience. The interesting thing about this is that you are constantly being confronted with the question “Is it really that bad?” The most cruel solutions are sold as “for the greater good,” but how far do you go in this and humanity thus lose its own humanity?
It wasn’t easy, according to Tommy Wirkola, to make seven versions of Noomi Rapace (Millennium series, “Prometheus”), all with their own personalities, while acting against herself. However, Noomi Rapace is convincing in all her roles and always completely surrenders to her characters. Here too she carries the film, with her acting talent, on her shoulders and we as viewers can focus on the story instead of being bothered by seven identical faces. Glenn Close also plays her role as the blond and sterile-looking Nicolette Cayman, the stereotypical image of a tough scientist who is not afraid to subordinate her humanity to a mathematical formula. With her dialogues about famines and the hard decisions to be made, she convinces the viewer of the gravity of the situation and makes us doubt our own perspectives and what decisions we would make.
And of course the attention is also paid to our own Dutch Marwan Kenzari (‘Wolf’, ‘Ben-Hur’), in the role of Adrian Knowles, who received a Golden Calf for his role in ‘Wolf’ and an important fulfills its role. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have much room to show his talent.
“What Happened to Monday” contains a lot of action, a good dose of anger, violence, disappointment and above all hope. Hope for a happy ending, hope for the goodness in man and that, despite the grim future it stares in its face, it nevertheless chooses the right path and thus keeps the last flame of the human heart alive. It is also a case where humanity is the greatest enemy of its own and the attendant choices to sustain itself. These ultimately reflect the nature of this while also realizing that humanity is made up of individuals who love and, despite the great evil future, fight for a life of dignity. “What Happened to Monday” will in any case start a nice discussion.
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