Director: Josh Mendoza
Writer: Josh Mendoza (Screenplay)
Starring: Lulu Antariksa, Colin O’Donoghue, Mimi Rogers, Dohn Norwood, Jeff Kober, Peter O’Brien, Roshon Fegan
Plot: After the loss of her family, a young woman struggles to survive in a world long-since destroyed by disease; but when a lonely traveler offers her a place in his community, she must decide if the promise of a better life is worth the risk of trusting him.
Tagline – People become their own kind of monster.
Runtime: 1 Hour 32 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: The End of The World as We Know It
Story: What Still Remains starts in the world destroyed by a disease, Anna (Antariksa) lives with her brother and mother in a remote location just looking to survive, when she loses both of them in one day, she continues on alone, until one day a mysterious stranger Peter (O’Donoghue) arrives, offering a community and safety.
Joining Peter, Anna returns to the community seeing the good and bad parts of world on the way before joining the community.
Thoughts on What Still Remains
Characters – Anna is a young woman living in a disease riddled world, she has survived with her family in the middle of nowhere, until one day she loses them both. With training on how to survive she will continue to work alone to survive, until she meets a stranger that offers her hope of a better life, she wants to remain independent in this world which she might not get anymore. Peter is the mysterious stranger that offers Anna hope of a new life in a religious like community, he comes of like a good guy that only wants to help, but we soon learn his motives. Judith is one of the leaders in the community, she has helped raise the numbers with her religious beliefs which bring people together. We do get other community members, enemies and danger filled characters along the way.
Performances – Lulu Antariksa is the clear star of the film, her character like the audience learns everything as it happens, and we like to see just how she reacts to everything in a natural calm manner. Colin O’Donoghue is good in the supporting role keeping us wondering around his character. The rest of the cast do well with how they interact with Lulu.
Story – The story follows the world destroyed by disease with the survivors living off the map, we follow Anna a young woman that has been in such situation. We follow the solo Anna that needs to make a decision about surviving alone or with others, learning about how dangerous people can be. We have seen this style of film before and we know that Anna is the type of character that will need to make the big decisions. The tried and tested formula keeps things simple and by the end of the story you will be wanting to see what will happen next.
Thriller – The film does have an air of tension throughout, mostly around Anna being unsure about everything that is going on, we know she knows how to survive in her comfort zone, now the tension is around how she can cope away from it.
Settings – The film takes place in the woodland area around any city, we don’t touch any of the cities and any communities are just located within created walls, which does make sense.
Special Effects – The effects are only used when needed, they are for the battles with none of them looking out of place.
Scene of the Movie – Anna’s next step.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – We don’t get enough information about the reasons for the battle between the two communities.
Final Thoughts – This is a good survival thriller, it has a wonderful lead performance and puts us in a world you can believe to have be destroyed by a disease.
Overall: Survival thriller we know.
Rating
