hough he's even less sure of the whys than the hows, Alan (Arnot) does know this—some global catastrophe has essentially wiped humankind off the face of the planet. Thinking himself to be the last man in the world, Alan decides to document his post-apocalypse with a video camera in case some alien race shows up on Earth one day and wants to know what happened.
But much of what ends up on tape concerns the Shitabi, an Indian tribe from the Brazilian rainforest that Alan, a graduate student in anthropology, was studying before the catastrophe. What Alan admires most about the Shitabi is the wise, peaceful, non-possessive principle of "detachment" that they apply (or applied) to all aspects of their lives—if only those responsible for destroying humanity could have followed such a principle! But this ideal becomes much more difficult to follow when Alan discovers he's not the last man on Earth after all.
One day, the schlumpy grad student is discovered by gorgeous Sarah (Ryan), another survivor who's convinced that everyone dying was an act of God and is somehow a punishment for her being a bad person. In consoling her, Alan quickly grows close to Sarah (aided greatly by large amounts of alcohol); but this little "paradise" doesn't last for long.
As it turns out, Sarah's not the most stable person in the world. And if this weren't enough of an impediment to their burgeoning relationship (which Alan seems much more into than Sarah does, strangely enough), the two come across another survivor, Raphael (Montgomery), who's everything that Alan's not—hunky, daring, and fun.
Eventually, waking up and smelling the hormones, Alan realizes that he's losing Sarah's devotion, fast, and that he's not going to beat Raphael at his own game. So the camera-wielding grad student goes with his strengths. What would the Shitabi do?
A lighthearted look at Earth's end
Taking a more lighthearted approach to the idea that Hell is other people, Harry Ralston's The Last Man does some rather smart and funny things with sub-genres like the post-apocalypse, the love triangle and the faux-documentary. And while the directing and the acting don't always keep pace with the film's mostly sharp writing, the overall package is surprisingly entertaining. Having seen a successful festival run last year but only a few theaters in
early 2002, this video release may give the film its
widest exposure yet.
The conceit of Alan's Shitabi-infused video documentation makes for some really witty and comedic storytelling, and Arnott does a good job of bringing to life the character of the earnest, frumpy and somewhat socially maladjusted graduate student. Montgomery, as Alan's rather dim and unwitting wildboy nemesis, may impress some viewers as a Brad Pitt wannabe, but on the whole plays his role well.
Most audiences will of course know Jeri Ryan as Voyager's sexy, humanized Borg, Seven of Nine. But in this movie, the Trek star explores—fairly deftly—the dangerous realms of an often emotionally unstable (but still sexy) individual with a fidelity problem and a deep fear of being alone, who finds herself to be possibly the last woman on Earth, caught between two guys, one brainy and one brawny, each with plenty of problems of their own.
Yet, while The Last Man is a post-apocalyptic romantic dark comedy that's far from flat, it actually contains a few loose ends and concludes more with a fizzle than a bang, not really matching the rest of the film's strengths. Though for Ryan fans, perhaps the fact that the DVD contains not only her voice on one of the two commentary tracks but her audition footage as well, may lessen some of this disappointment.
