STARS: 2/5
Netflix added another mediocre film to its constantly growing filmography with dystopian drama “What Happened to Monday.”
Director Tommy Wirkola sets the scene in a near-futuristic world riddled with devastation, famine and overpopulation. The depletion of resources has led to the implementation of a strict one child per family rule, enforced by checkpoints guarded by Child Allocation Bureau.
When a sibling is discovered, they are forcefully taken to a mysterious location to enter cryosleep, where they are put to sleep for hundreds of years until their presence is deemed necessary again. In this society, it’s not unusual to see an officer ripping a family apart on your daily work commute.
The premise of the film and the dark, chaotic dystopian tone closely mirrors other films of the genre, particularly conjuring up images of 2006’s “Children of Men.” Just like the rest of these films, “What Happened to Monday” tells the story of the exception to the rule, and in the film’s case, it’s done through Noomi Rapace’s portrayal of septuplets, each named after a day of the week.
This gimmick is necessary for “What Happened to Monday” to set itself apart from the slew of post-apocalyptic films that have become so popular in our tense political climate, and Rapace is magnetic, playing the seven siblings each with their own personal flair and personality.
Beyond Rapace’s career-defining performance and the sheer intrigue of the no-more-siblings concept, the rest of the film flounders in improbability and messy execution.
The first half of the film serves as a too-long excuse for an exposition and has trouble deciding how graphic it wants to be, making for a confusing viewing experience.
During the first action sequence where the sisters find themselves against CAB officers, the film picks up speed but can’t stick with an appropriate level of graphic violence and gore.
The rest of the action scenes are tragically unexciting and sloppily carried out, so that the outcome of the fights do not seem to matter much. This is not helped by a lack of emotional connection to the characters, due to poor development and an overstuffed cast.
By adding nothing new to an overdone genre and disjointedly wrapping up the complex plot, “What Happened to Monday” does not prove to be a valuable addition to Netflix’s canon of work.
