EVER SINCE THE WORLD ENDED

A Hard Rain Fell

by Brian Hughes

A plague decimated the globe 12 years ago. Two filmmakers, “Cal” and “Josh”, traverse the city of San Francisco and interview some of the 186 survivors. It’s a barren wasteland of empty skyscrapers, abandoned cars and skeleton strewn homes. A time where gum disease could kill you as fast as a bullet shot from a nomadic drifter, and the only means of transportation are by foot or bicycle. We are back to a world where the unknown lies just beyond the horizon. Where laws have to be re-thought and executed in a land reminiscent of the Wild West. The film is the story of the survivors and how they continually cope with new challenges in a dangerous world.

The movie is Sci-Fi without the CGI effects and overblown budget. For this the directors (Calum Grant and Joshua Atesh Litle) should be applauded. You don’t always need to view things in a movie to actually see them, especially if you have great actors. One survivor (Greg Lucey) wonderfully depicts life on a trading floor when the world started to fall apart. He talks of the tote board and its plummeting numbers and the crest fallen faces of his co-workers. His retelling was entirely believable, with the handheld shaky camera work and real exchanges between the survivors giving complete authenticity to the film within the film.

The filmmakers, for the most part, stay out of the way and let the inhabitants tell their story and expound on their own unique purpose in this new society. One woman named Mama Eva (Angie Thieriot) runs a commune for young women and artists. She is the matriarch, the guru, who watches over her children. A woman staying there is trying to have a child and is looking for the right man to help her in this endeavor. The race will go on. Hope is palpable. There is still a craving to be with others and unite. That no plague, or nuclear war, will ever eradicate that sense of community. Yet in watching these scenes, I could not help but feel something was a-miss. Everyone at the commune looked way too complacent. Mama Eva is decked out in jewelry and her table is chockfull of food. Everyone looks clean, healthy and well shaven. I couldn’t quite buy it.

At another point in the film it is mentioned that the city planners did a fine job with the generators and the water systems and that the inhabitants were able to survive so well because of it. Once again it is hard to believe that the man-made and man-run systems that include heat, electricity and sewage would be operating so well twelve years on into the catastrophe.

What was thoroughly enjoyable were the actors. Not once did I see anyone acting. And I have always believed that good acting is the result of good direction, so I tip my hat to Grant and Litle for achieving that reality. The way desolated San Francisco was shot was also believable. And the film deals with some very important ethical questions. For instance, there is a revolutionary madman named Mark (Mark Routhier) on the lam. He returns after being ousted from the San Francisco survivors. He wants back in, he wants to contribute positively, but the community is remiss to do so. They struggle with the age old question of capital punishment and rehabilitation. Could there be law and order in such a world? Or do we all turn into a band of vigilantes? Other interesting questions that arise: Can we live a full life without the material objects we once held so dear? This point is made astutely clear by the dichotomy of the youth, who are not old enough to remember wanting the good things in life, with the citizens of the old world – still clinging to life before the plague. The youth appreciate the simple things: nature’s beauty, silence and true independence. They are the future for this society. They will raise it up once again, and they seem ready for the challenge.

My problems with the film deal with choices and time. I wasn’t much interested in seeing scenes of children learning how to play piano, a professor teaching to a small band of students about Leonardo da Vinci and an American Indian building a canoe to somehow further his race into the new world. I’m sure the filmmakers were trying to say that life is going on, as will music and art. But to this reviewer, it was boring. How people survive is much more interesting, like the modern day Robin Hood (David Driver) who steals goods for the survivors: Or Mark – the loner wanted by the people for setting homes on fire – both outstanding performances.

Something was missing: there just wasn’t enough tension. Everyone in the film seemed complacent and that is solely because we are twelve years into this thing. There were two moments of panic in the film, and they were great, but it left me wanting more. Everyone is set in their ways and void of real terror. Thusly, I was void of real terror. Ever Since The World Ended is supposed to scare you with the reality of plague, but it didn’t. I guess I would have preferred a film closer to the early years of the plague, rather than the safe distance the creators chose.

reviewed: 2007-01-21

Related links:
IMDB: Ever Since The World Ended (2006)