Mark Reviews Movies: LAST CALL

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | September 17, 2020

The worlds of two people collide in Last Call, and co-writer/director Gavin Michael Booth captures the collision in real-time. Splitting the screen between two unbroken shots, the film follows a man contemplating suicide and the woman he accidentally calls while looking for help. We know the film is more than just the gimmick of how it was made because the presentation actually feels a bit distracting at times.

One half of the screen (which rotates the position of the two shots, between horizontal and vertical alignments, depending on the on-screen action) watches Beth (Sarah Booth), a single mother working as the night custodian at the school she attends. The other observes Scott (Daved Wilkins), who returns to his apartment after a night at a bar with a bottle of booze in hand.

Beth's son has gone missing after going out to a movie with a friend. While she tries to find him and someone to cover her shift, Scott keeps drinking. Eventually, he makes a couple of phone calls. The last one makes the phone at the school ring, and after some initial confusion, Beth realizes that the man on the other end of the line, who believes he has called a suicide helpline, is in severe emotional distress.

Despite the high stakes of this scenario, the screenplay, written by Booth and Wilkins, and the pacing here are surprisingly relaxed. The two characters talk on the phone about their lives, their families, and their troubles (Booth plays with the sound in intriguing ways, such as having significant portions of the conversation being heard from the receiver—because actually listening is the most important part of this dialogue). There isn't much more to the story, really, except for moments when Scott seems to give up, leading Beth to rush to find more information about the troubled man.

Formally, this is a clever two-hander, featuring strong performances (Booth, in particular, communicates the emotional toll of the evening) and, in spite of the sometimes lengthy gaps in action (The main reason the real-time gimmick distracts when it does, and while Adrian Ellis' score reminds us of the stakes, it's often overbearing), a real sense of rising tension. In terms of story and theme, Last Call is all about listening—really, truly listening. By the end, we know these characters, their pain, and the real cost of what has unfolded.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products