4:44 Last Day on Earth
Willem Dafoe and Shanyn Leigh headline director Abel Ferrara's apocalyptic drama set in a New York City loft, where an artist and an actor await the end of the world. Natasha Lyonne and Paul Hipp co-star.
Director: Abel Ferrara
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Shanyn Leigh, Natasha Lyonne, Paul Hipp
If the end of the world was just hours away, would New Yorkers still be able to get takeout? Yes, if Abel Ferrara's mind-bending 4:44 Last Day on Earth is any indication.
The picture is also weirdly compelling, maybe most notably for the way Dafoe's character - who is, in this respect, perhaps a stand-in for the Bronx-born Ferrara - seems to be grappling less with the idea that the world is ending than that the city is ending.
Your last day - or, as it happens, the whole planet's last day - will be just like every other one. Mr. Ferrara makes this point with ingenuity and characteristic thrift by using found news footage to provide images of apocalypse.
Dafoe, who also starred in Ferrara's woefully underseen "Go Go Tales," brings a quiet grace to his role, while Leigh has a rough-hewn emotional directness.
Best of all is the half-surreal, half-touching scene of the couple ordering Chinese delivery - needless to say, the tip is sizable - and inviting the courier to Skype his family one last time and share in a moment of common humanity.
Abel Ferrara
Venice Film Festival (2011)
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