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| Last Orders |
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  (7/10)
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Runtime: 109 |
| Public Rating: 9.67 (3 votes) |
Director: Fred Schepisi |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Drama |
Year: 2001 |
| Writer(s): Fred Schepisi |
| Distributor: 1 |
| Reviewed by: Vadim Rizov |
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Death, aging, and life's inevitable (for most of us anyway) disappointments are all nice meaty subjects that rarely get cinematic explorations because they rarely tend to be uplifting. The template is Tokyo Story, in which a character actually says "Life is disappointing, isn't it?" In the context of the film, this is actually a happy moment, a beam of self-awareness that helps to reframe the character's priorities and aspirations. The lower-class Brits of Last Orders have no desire for self-awareness, or at least they don't articulate it for all to hear. They drink, and that takes care of their issues for a few hours, and thus the film concludes: the ashes of their late friend dumped into the sea, they go off to have a drink.
If Last Orders isn't as deft as it would be in a perfect world, it's one of the few films in recent times to actually move me, coldhearted bastard that I am. Adapted from Graham Swift's much-praised but, typically, unread by me novel, it travels along a precarious chronological structure, moving slowly forward with all sorts of illuminating detours into the recent past and war flashbacks of 5 friends, one of whom (Michael Caine, still mercenary and terrific in a part that he seems to naturally inhabit) is about to be buried. His death acts as the fulcrum, but for no key revelations. The flashbacks, important as they are, are unclear as to their occurrence: do the protagonists actually have them, or are they merely there for the benefit of the understanding? Can they see the paths of their lives as clearly as we can? Probably not, but that's part of the sadness.
Fred Schepisi deftly keeps issues of class and history on the periphery, or at least far enough away from the central action so as to be discreetly hidden from the first-time viewer. The chronology has the possibility of being extraneous, overly clever and useless, but it's anything but. Schepisi doesn't find clever, mocking parallels or apposite moments; instead, he imagines two separate planes which intersect at certain moments, key or not, and which ultimately enrich each other. There are no grand, big shouting sections which a more conventional film would find: the most unsettling thing about Last Orders is how casual it all feels, including Paul Grabowsky's bouncy quasi-jazz score. There's nothing sloppy or unfocused about the proceedings, but despite the seemingly prescribed hopelesness of all the characters' lives, there's still room for small triumphs which cover up the emptiness.
What isn't so impressive about Last Orders (besides the room it gives people like myself to sound pissed-off and bitter) is how long it takes for the sadness to kick in. Much of the film felt, for a while, absorbing but tentative, unsure as I was of what would become of it all. At a certain flashback, the melancholy kicked in, and instead of a shallow but absorbingly inconclusive work, it's like a verdict has been delivered. If the presentation is anything but didactic, the impression is devastating. If I'm ultimately unsure as to how personal it all is and as to the larger implications of it all, I'm equally unsure as to whether this is a strength or weakness.
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