In Last Night, amidst the pre-miliennial tension and hys­teria, director Don McKellar calmly asks: What would you do on your last night on Earth? The answers take his char­acters and the audience through a rich emotional spec­trum, from the quirky to the inspirational. Buildings burn, looting and street violence runs rampant, transportation is impossible and lunatics roam the city but a DJ insists on broadcast the Top 500 songs (in his opinion) of all time.

Patrick's circle of family and friends, the focus of the film, prepare for the end in wildly different ways. Patrick appeases his overbearing mother by attending a final family dinner, his friend Craig has made an exten­sive wish-list of sexual aspirations he must fulfil before the end. Sandra, a stranger who turns up on Patrick's doorstep, is thwarted in her attempts to get home to go through with a suicide pact she has arranged with her husband. With an asteroid apocalypse imminent, the var­ious strands of this wonderful film are brought together.

In this Director's Fortnight selection at Cannes 1998, McKellar treats annihilation as a casual fact, con­centrating on a handful of characters and their tragi­comic unlinished business: sex, music and unwelcome family dinners. Taking place in Toronto during the last six hours of the worlds existence, New Year's Eve 1999, McKellar's wickedly humourous film transcends its epic subject matter.