The Last Boy is a 2019 sci-fi thriller about the world at an end and a dying mother who sends her young son on a quest to find the place that grants wishes.
It’s not uncommon for a movie to drop you neck deep in a story and back pedal a bit to get you caught up, or at least fill in the gaps as we travel along to its end. As a plot device, it can hook fast if done right, pulling you into whatever chaos has led to such plights and keep you invested in wondering about the hows and why. Writer/director Perry Bhandal‘s latest The Last Boy starts just this way, plopping us right into the aftermath of something tragic, then carrying us along its curious journey of discovery that may not have the weight it portends to have, but does manage to keep it involving.
In an undisclosed place, a young boy named Sira (Flynn Allen) tends to his ailing mother, she close to death, afflicted by some unknown condition that leaves her only a few hours to live. She offers him directions for a bit of travel to a place that should be safe, then dies in the night. In the morning, he’s off, bodies of water key to his survival as a ghostly wind haunts the countryside, leaving those it touches turned to statues of ash. He soon meets an even younger girl, Lilly (Matilda Freeman), alone as well, the two then taking to the trail in hopes of finding a secret place that grants wishes, learning that the wind is not the only thing for which they should be afraid.
Arranging itself much like a metaphorical odyssey, The Last Boy draws parallel to a slew of recent apocalyptic thrillers where it’s not just some global disaster that has brought near extinction to our fragile species but a scavenging specter lingering the peripheral, waiting to strike. Like M. Night Shyamalan‘s The Happening, John Krasinski‘s A Quiet Place, or the Sandra Bullock-starring Bird Box, we’re once again following a small cast of survivors struggling to outwit something – this one also attracted to sound, attacking with swift, near invisible menace. And it only hunts humans.
It’s not original, yet truthfully, what is anymore? For a movie like this to have any significance, it needs strong characters, especially since Bhandal is working with a very small budget. To that end, it’s a mixed bag. Sira is a smart kid, who’s able to piece things together pretty quickly, but doesn’t have all that much emotional umph and is absent for large chunks of the story. He’s soon in the company of a revolving door of odd others, from a cult-like priest (Peter Guinness) with a harem of frightened young women, led by the motherly Jenna (Anna Wilson-Jones), to a desperate woman (Jennifer Scott) and a frazzled, widower soldier (Luke Goss) who travel with the young children, combining skills to outlast the creature.
The potential for something compelling is buried deep in all of this, and admittedly, there are several good moments with most of the cast doing what they can to lend it some punch. Honestly, there were a few times it really found its way, landing right where it should with some genuine surprises that seem to break the mold. Mostly though, it simply doesn’t build or maintain any substantial momentum to merit the thrills it aims for, leaving people to speak softly for extended periods or scenes of walking with a score (by Alex Gobbett and Adam Harvey) that feels more fitting of a game adaptation of the film than the film itself, if that makes sense.
I’m on the fence, able to say The Last Boy is entertaining, Bhandal a competent storyteller with great sincerity in his efforts, his symbolic ending rife with ambiguity that should spark some conversation. It’s challenging and that’s a good thing. At the same time, it’s hard to recommend, the minimalist style and lack of big action surely primed to turn fans of the genre away. Worth a look to try, and better the more it gets going, just to see where it takes you.