For Breeze’s first event of the year, we are thrilled to be hosting a screening of a multi award-winning film that was selected for our festival last October and won an Honourable Mention award in the Feature Film category: Just One Last Thing, written and directed by Alexandra Gillespie. This is Alexandra’s feature debut as a filmmaker, having previously worked as a lawyer, and the passion and care that went into the project is clear throughout its runtime. Just One Last Thing tells the story of a halfway house situated between the realms of the living and the dead, where recently deceased people are sent to complete their bucket list and do ‘one last thing’ that will release their tether to the world and allow them to move on to the great beyond without regrets. Etta, the custodian of this house, must juggle the responsibilities of her job with wanting to help her best friend Olivia, who arrives at the house in breach of the rules.
The halfway house is warm and inviting, bursting with vibrant colours, reflecting the diverse and quirky set of characters who arrive one by one at the beginning of the film. We would normally expect this kind of place to be clinical, drab, and administrative- a place you wouldn’t want to be stuck in for too long. Alexandra subverts this expectation by using her own home as the setting. The friendly Etta greets the guests and offers them their favourite treat to welcome them to the house. They are each able to walk into a magical wardrobe and pick out their dream outfit. We see them have family meals and play games together. This is no gloomy, neglected way-station, but a place to feel at home and safe. JOLT is, on the surface, a refreshingly playful and joyful take on the afterlife, but it becomes clear early on that it is all of that and much more, tackling themes of grief, regret, violence against women, and friendship.
Humans have always been obsessed with the question of what is waiting for us on the other side and, if there is a form of Heaven, whether we will have done enough in our lives to be deemed worthy of entry. Many films have explored these questions surrounding death and the afterlife, often depicting people who are put on trial to review their lives and determine where they will go next: upstairs or downstairs. Other films present their protagonists with a decision or sacrifice that they must make before they can move on. I have selected a few films (and one TV series) that came to mind when I first watched Just One Last Thing due to each being set in liminal spaces- the service stations of the after life- where souls go to for evaluation before arriving at their final destination.
In Hirozaku Kore-Eda’s After Life (Japan, 1998), the recently deceased arrive at a facility that tasks them with choosing the one memory from their life that they would like to spend eternity in. Once they have made their decision, the staff help them to recreate it on film as accurately as possible. Like the characters in JOLT, each of them must look back on their lives and figure out what it is that would make them happy and therefore able to leave their limbo state. It is often said that when someone has a near-death experience, their life flashes before their eyes. For a split second, they are neither living nor dead, watching a reel of their own memories. After Life extends this experience for its characters, giving them time and space to review each memory, so that they can make the right choices.
The TV Series The Good Place (US, 2016-2020), created by Mike Schur, starts with each of the main characters arriving in an office, where the man behind the desk informs them that they have died, but that everything is all right because they are in ‘The Good Place.’ The series’ main protagonists are each full of regret for various reasons, and plan to put things right that they didn’t manage to do whilst they were alive.
Defending Your Life (Dir. Albert Brooks, US 1991) follows a man, Daniel (Brooks), who arrives in Judgement City having died in an accident. He meets and falls in love with Julia, played by Meryl Streep, but soon discovers that he needs to put their love to the test and prove he is brave enough to be with her and join her in the afterlife. Julia has lived life to the fullest and has been rewarded for this with her swanky room, while Daniel has a simpler dwelling as he has not been as bold in his life.
One of the earliest films to explore the idea of a liminal space between life and death is Powell & Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death (UK, 1946), which follows pilot Peter Carter’s journey after he falls from his burning plane and somehow survives. He carries on with his life and falls in love with the woman he was communicating with on his plane’s radio in the moments before he fell. After the staff in the cold and imposing marble fortress in the sky realise that Peter slipped through the cracks and should have died that day, they summon him to the afterlife. He has other plans and requests a trial that will allow him to explain that since he has fallen in love, he must stay on earth.
Each of these films and series reflect our desire to know where we will go after we die and whether it will be idyllic and picturesque or a burning hellscape. Just One Last Thing is a funny, poignant, and insightful story that celebrates life and raises many critical issues, such as violence against women, and processing trauma. Trauma can tie us to a particular time and place, hence why in ghost stories, they are usually confined to the building or area in which they died. It is only when they complete their ‘unfinished business’ that they are physically able to leave our world and transition to the next.
I hope to see you at the screening at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith on the 18th at 6pm.
