I have been eagerly watching Noomi Rapace’s career since she starred as Lisbeth Salander in the Norwegian Version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (available on Netflix). Rapace was amazing in that film, and I had hoped her star would come to the US and work. It has, but in fits and starts, with probably her best role where she has to undergo the world’s scariest C-Section. What Happened to Monday is a dream role to prove Rapace deserves the praise I’ve been heaping upon her. Much like her career though, Rapace and the movie work only in fits and starts.
In this particular post apocalyptic London, we’re at the opposite of Children of Men. To combat food shortages, manufactured crops lead to an explosion of pregnancies and new babies. So politician Nicolette Cayman (Glenn Close) proposes to place every sibling into cryogenic slumber, leaving only one as the true child for every family. This is a problem for Terrence Settman (Willem Dafoe), who has to hide his daughter’s seven twins. So, he devises a scheme where each kid is named for a day of the week, so the seven Settman daughters (all Noomi Rapace) become Karen Settman. This policy works until 1) Cayman’s ascension tightens the grips on any siblings, especially in important jobs like Karen’s, and 2) Monday all of a sudden goes missing, meaning the other 6 have to figure out what the hell happened to the otherwise dependable Monday without risking being seen in public as a twin.
Much like James McAvoy’s role in Split, the septuplet Settman clan is a role only for a great thespian. Rapace has to make 7 Days of the Week distinct personalities. How does she do? Not bad! I could tell who who Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday are, and Rapace does a great job making them distinct but subtly different. Tuesday and Sunday, like in real life, have no personality and are pure plot device driven; however, I’m pretty sure had Rapace been given 10 more minutes, she would have found something other than a hairdo for Sunday, who is personally my weak link of the siblings. Noomi really makes us truly believe that she is all the twins though, whether it be Friday hacking into the mainframes at her bank, or Wednesday kickboxing and base jumping her way out of danger or even the Thursday skeptic a la Trinity from the Matrix. The talent Rapace gets to show covers up many of the flaws of the script and you just go along for the ride watching a great actor turn in 70% good performances.
Max Botin and Kerry Williamson’s screenplay is probably the weak link here. It’s almost as if those two came up with the premise for the story, and what they thought would be a really good plot twist, and hoped the rest of the movie would sort of write itself. The setup is fine, but we don’t get enough intro into the seven women and the individual lives they lead as well as any interpersonal conflicts other than the Monday/Thursday main one. Had we gotten more understanding for the rules of the Settman’s world and more individuality, the twist that the duo plan would land harder and much more emotionally. Instead, because of the thin set up, the twist is seen coming 30 minutes into the movie and telegraphed so when it happens I mostly shrugged, until a better twist later in the movie. Also, it might have been smarter to remove Glenn Close’s part entirely, and just build the story around the sister’s working together to overcome a problem. As written, the movie tries to cram a dystopian world building into a caper as well as a political espionage film, which means we slack on character in favor of moving things along so the audience will be mostly satisfied. That strategy fails much of the emotional and though-provoking impact of the movie outside what the cast can conjure up.
As you can see, I was frustrated for What Happened to Monday because of what it could be, and the ideas the movie sets up and never fulfills on. The biggest one: why the hell doesn’t Tuesday or Wednesday resent Saturday? That girl gets to do ANYTHING she wants and live a life without responsibility. Do the girls all get chances to do live each type of day? Or do they just stick to the day’s they know? I WANT TO KNOW!