During the summer in small towns across America, sirens will sound from time to time to signal all sorts of things. in Mount Kisco, New YorkThese are used – still – To summon members of the city’s volunteer fire brigade. piercing, unexpected, cryingSirens can distract anyone mentally. And if you’re already on edge when they leave? Well, good luck.
In Rachel Rose’s directorial debut, “The Last Day,” these sirens serve as one of several punctuating — and, at times, quite conspicuous — elements to keep its characters and the audience engaged. There’s also a dead doe, her worried fawn, recurring fireworks, plenty of flashbacks, and at least one ill-advised ketamine trip. But these parts, as gimmicky as they may be, can’t overshadow the film’s real strength: the beautiful performances from stars Alicia Vikander and Victoria Pedretti. The steady anxiety they evoke is even more powerful than those other flourishes.
Billed as a modern interpretation of Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway,” visual artist-turned-filmmaker Rose offers a little more restraint when it comes to her screenplay. All the big features of Woolf’s novel are present – the disaffected housewife, the unstable stranger, the dedication to all kinds of chores in a single day, the blasts from the past – but Rose’s script isn’t at all fussy when it comes to being one-on-one with her adaptation. He took what he needed, ignored the rest, and turned it into a surprisingly smart new spin on classic material.
At the center is Vikander’s stoic Julia (“Mrs. Dalloway” fans, she’s your Clarissa), a suburban housewife attempting to navigate a very busy Fourth of July. She has a traveling husband, a growing daughter, and a large home outside New York City. She’s hosting a big holiday party that night, but first HeJulia, a onetime novelist, has to go to town to work on a long to-do list. Cinematographer Eric Yu stays close to his subjects, a handheld camera capturing us in their movements, unsettling and intimate in equal measure.
Julia’s day is already full of difficulties (amidst all this, she’s also dealing with the deep grief of her recently deceased father), but things become more complicated because she, phewLast minute Botox treatments, a fling with perhaps the greatest love of her life (Wagner Moura), a totally terrible professional meeting, and a trip to her father’s old house. There is a stop for group therapy. There are flashbacks that help reveal more of her past life. There is a growing uneasiness as Julia attempts to balance her everyday concerns with deeper fears about who she is as a woman, an artist, a wife, a mother, and a person.
Meanwhile, fellow young suburban mother Taylor (Pedretti) is facing similar problems, simply trying to get through the day despite being unable to overcome deep fears about her existence. We first meet Taylor at a local bakery as she is struggling to pay for some cookies (she is in such a state that she doesn’t even think to think about the whereabouts of her wallet).
Julia is there too, but the women don’t actually cross paths until Julia finds Taylor’s wallet in the parking lot, adding another task to her to-do list. She can’t possibly know what’s really happening to the young mother who, before pulling out of the parking lot and heading in the other direction, punches the address of a psychiatric hospital into her GPS. (The GPS keeps advising her to take a U-turn. She won’t do it.)
When Julia looks up Taylor on the Internet, the picture of her that emerges — healthy, smiling photos — is a far cry from what we’ve seen of her. And when Taylor finally meets Julia in person, it’s clear she admires the woman who puts it all together. That neither woman is able to see how closely they are connected, how intertwined their concerns are, is one of the biggest heartbreaks in a movie full of them.
As Taylor heads home with her concerned husband and three young children (three is one) VeryHer pediatrician admitted to her later in the day, during a nerve-wracking fit), she continued to panic. Flashbacks to her pre-baby life draw us in even further – she used to be a delivery nurse, of all things – and Pedretti’s joy and liveliness during these scenes only highlights how heartbreaking the rest of her performance is. Julia may be struggling to reconcile who she wants to be with, but Taylor has long since lost any sense of herself.
As Rose’s film follows the pair throughout their day, “The Last Day” continues to cleverly use the “Mrs. Dalloway” framework to answer questions about modern womanhood (those familiar with the novel will expect Rose’s script to highlight particularly smart ways of interpreting Taylor). How can Julia and Taylor exist beyond motherhood? Why is it so hard to connect with other women? What does the future look like? What does the past do? And why can’t they be happy with what they have?
Vikander presents these themes with a steady presence, much of her performance Now! registers on her face (it’s a compliment, given a scene in which she grapples with professional frustration and resentment as we see how hard she’s struggling to keep it together), while Pedretti leans more toward a twist. so So open that it almost seems too intimate. I can’t remember any recent movie during which I was so desperate to reach out to a character and hug him.
But of course, I couldn’t do that. I could recognize the need, the pain, and the fear of the women who lived here, but I couldn’t touch it, or change it. I could hear it and feel it. But I could only observe it.
grade B
“The Last Day” premiered at the 2026 Tribeca Festival. It is currently seeking US distribution.
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