Tribeca: “The Last Day” Swelters in What Could Have Been
Despite being one of the core truths of our existence, it’s sometimes hard to remember that we are the children of someone. Not all of us will go on to be parents ourselves, but all of us came from someone. Rachel Rose’s directorial debut, The Last Day, not to be confused with her experimental art piece of the same name, is a film about motherhood. Loosely based on Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, the movie is a meditative look at a day in the lives of two women who are at different stages as people and mothers.
Julia (Alicia Vikander), like Woolf’s titular Mrs Dalloway, is getting ready for a party. It’s the Fourth of July, and she has been hosting a get-together at this house since she moved out of New York City. Julia’s day begins with a group meeting about loss and a stop at a bakery to pick up sweets for the evening’s festivities. While at the bakery, she tangentially meets Taylor (Victoria Pedretti), a frazzled young mother of three. The Last Day meanders between the stories of these two women as they endure oppressive summer heat and brace themselves for the fireworks that will greet them at the end of the day.
Once upon a time, Julia wrote a novel that was critically and commercially well-regarded. She hasn’t written another, and that’s thanks to becoming a mother over ten years ago. As the day goes on, it’s obvious that Julia very much misses city life and chasing creativity, but being a parent leaves little time for those endeavors. Like Mrs Dalloway, Julia mourns a life she didn’t get to lead. The audience sees glimpses of what could have been when she runs into Peter (Wagner Moura), an old flame, while walking through Central Park. He tells her she’s a good writer, that she shouldn’t have given it up, and that if she tries a little harder, she can make it work as both a writer and a mother. Of course, it’s not that simple.
Courtesy of Tribeca
Julia’s story is interesting enough and does speak to the sacrifices that come with motherhood specifically, but it pales in comparison to Taylor’s. She’s a labor and delivery nurse who has three children and a husband (Michael Stahl-David) who’s always being pulled into work. From the moment the camera falls on Taylor, it’s clear she’s treading water, but not well. Postpartum depression weighs on her, but she’s doing everything she’s supposed to be doing. She’s seeking help with a therapist, taking medication, and being honest with her husband about her mental state. It’s not enough, though, and that is a heartbreaking realization. Pedretti sells it entirely, an absolute force to be reckoned with when it comes to emoting such an internal struggle.
The realities of Julia and Taylor are those of women around the world. Every day, women are fighting to maintain their personhood as they take on the role of mother. Both stories deserved to have equal time on-screen in The Last Day, but it was Julia’s that was given a larger spotlight. This is disappointing, given the fact that a monumental piece of information about Taylor’s life is delivered as an off-hand comment toward the end of the film. It’s not about which of these women is experiencing more pain and therefore deserves to have her story told, but the fact that Taylor is forgotten in such a heartbreaking fashion.
The Last Day is not a faithful adaptation of Mrs Dalloway, but it captures the emotion that a stream of consciousness narrative style can afford. One of the film’s strongest qualities is that it doesn’t rely on narration for the audience to understand these women. Instead, Rose bet on Vikander and Pedretti, and that’s a bet that’ll always pay off. The Last Day is hazy and heavy, like the weight of our life’s choices as they come to a frightening flashpoint.
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