I had the unique opportunity to watch a movie called “What Happened to Monday” with my fellow Rose Scholars, and the movie left me both horrified and fascinated by the events that unfolded.

I went into the movie “blind”, so I did not know much about the movie beyond the basic plot of seven identical sisters playing out their lives as the same person when in the outside world when suddenly one day, one of the sisters disappears. While a warning was given before the movie about it containing scenes with violence, I was unaware of the amount of violence involving blood and death. I usually do not watch movies containing graphic violence, so in this aspect I did not enjoy the film and had to look away from the screen at times during fight scenes.

Despite the amount of violence within the movie, the premise itself is interesting. In the film, over-population has led to the idea of a law involving each family only having one child and any additional children being put to sleep in order for them to “wake up to a better future”. This is why the seven sisters all pretend to be a single person: if not for their acting and coordination where each sister goes outside of their shared apartment on the day matching their name (for example, “Monday” going outside only on Mondays), six of the sisters would have already been taken in by the government and put to sleep. While I will not spoil the ending for anyone interested in viewing the film, it is interesting to note the detail placed on elements such as how the law was advertised to the public as a positive solution to the over-population crisis. The writers of the film made the solution of only having one child seem like a such a logical answer to the situation that it could possibly be considered as a real-life solution should over-population start to become an issue in the real world outside of the movie.

In the case of “What Happened to Monday”, the seven sisters were so afraid of being put to sleep by the government that they formulated their entire lives around being the same person when outside in the “real world”. While I am not sure how often I would re-watch “What Happened to Monday”, I do recommend it to others and ask that they think while watching the film about how people in positions of “power”, such as the government, affect how we operate in our everyday lives in real life.

One Friday night, I watched the movie What Happened to Monday with all other Rose scholars in the dining hall. The movie mainly talked about in an virtual future country, the government restricts people from having more than one child. For a family that has octuplets,  in order for the children to survive, each of them can only appear 1 day in a week. As a result,  the oldest girl is called “Monday”. However, one day “Monday” betrays the family to do a barter with government because she falls in love with someone and wants to protect her children(a twin).

Personally, as a person who was born in China under one child policy, I thought a lot when I watched the movie. Even when I did not feel a lot when I was a child, I do wish more and more now that I have a sibling: If I have a younger sister/brother, I can teach her/him read, write and play; If I have an older one, I may have someone to talk/get advice from if I have any problems. Just as what the GRF said, sometimes we are told that by someone that “we do this for all of you” “we will only do this now to have a better future”. But is that actually the case? Will it ever stop once it starts? The answer is unknown.

The movie itself has some violence situations that I do not like much, but it does provoke me to think deeply about many things, especially as a single child in family. Also, I understand more what it means to be a family by watching this movie: No one can change the relation. Members of a family will be linked forever, no matter what happens.

Truly an off experience to say the least… I’m still reeling days later. Gratuitous violence and clichés took away from an otherwise interesting plot. I always like a good dystopian movie and perhaps that is why the movie was at least tolerable to me. Yet, that is without saying how needlessly violent it was, through impromptu finger amputations (a prosthetic for Tuesday could have easily been manufactures instead) to ridiculously gory fight scenes, I came shaking out of the dining hall.

I was, however, rather interested in the discussion Magdala tried to foster after the film and to keep in mind the motifs of control and surveillance when watching the film. As Magdala put it, she wanted to “disrupt our conception of reality.” To be fair, it was certainly through provoking, and I appreciated the design and story methods the filmmakers used to convey authoritarian control over the population. And I must say, Glenn Close’s was marvelous at her role (like she is at portraying most of her characters).

It would be interesting to further explore this subject with another discussion, perhaps at a Monday Table Talk, as I’m certain people would come up with interesting ideas of governance and modern culture, especially with recent technological and political developments.

Last Friday, I had the opportunity to watch “What Happened to Monday” as part of the Rose Scholars Friday movie series. After the initial disclaimer the GRF gave in the beginning of the movie, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Unfortunately, I wasn’t pleasantly surprised — the movie felt unnecessarily graphic with the plot feeling forced and predictable. I was, however, quite intrigued by the premise behind the movie, and the implications set forth by it. The central issue at hand was one of population control. In the world where widespread efforts, including modern medicine, are in place to keep society healthy and alive, it’s a controversial issue to point out how technology has put us above the evolutionary laws that shaped mankind, and how one day the world may not be able to support an ever growing population. As the late Stephen Hawking used to claim, humans would need to leave Earth and colonize other planets. To some, of course, actions such this movie’s, and China’s, one child policy may seem more practical. I’m curious to see how our society responds to overpopulation when the time comes.

Last week as I was watching the film What happened to Monday, a constant thought came to my mind regarding how solutions to various problems often breach ethics. Everybody grows up with their own set of morals, and it can be hard to enact policies that reconcile with these values to create solutions. Although the ethical issues in this movie were just killing people which is wrong on many levels, I believe that the idea about how policies that seem cruel are created and sustained goes towards the debate regarding impact versus intent. The intent of this policy was to create a solution overpopulation which was resulting in challenges with resource allocation. While the impact of the policy was cruel, the policymakers may be so fixated on creating solutions, that they lose the scope of the reality of their polcies. That’s not to say that policymakers aren’t to blame, I just believe it is important to imagine the perspectives that they might have prior to creating legislation. The movie symbolizes how a desperate need for a solution to a problem results in corruption of power. I think it would be beneficial for policymakers who are somewhat unaware of how the scope of their legislation actually impacts people needs to watch this film as I believe it will promote better conversation regarding how they can continue to work on issues such as poverty, and insufficient resource allocation considering all the stakeholders involved. I also believe that although this film took the idea to an extreme, there are many subtle messages that can be important for everybody like the importance of always stepping back whenever creating solutions to problems, to understand how your solutions affect various other people in your life. I also believe that another implicit yet important message that this film conveyed is the importance is staying true to yourself. Friday wanted to keep the record of the siblings’ existence till the last minute and risked her life for it which I thought was as an act of true bravery and courage. Overall, I enjoyed the film because I felt that although there were some exaggerated parts, with the increasing problems of now day society, I believe that a corruption of power is very plausible.I appreciate scientific films like this because I believe that they bring to light future realities we may not want to face, but these movies also start important conversations that can be used to prevent policies like these from being implemented.

I was surprised by the movie What Happened to Monday, mostly because I thought it was going to be lighthearted and somewhat comedic. I don’t know why I expected that, especially since I was told that it was about a dystopian society and was warned multiple times that it would be graphic. Anyway, I’m just too squeamish for this kind of thing.

When Thursday loses part of a finger, the grandfather moves to replicate the injury on the rest of the sisters. Monday asks if it’s going to hurt. He says yes. Later on, Thursday watches a little girl as she’s about to be “frozen.” The little girl asks the woman assisting with the procedure if it’s going to hurt.  The woman says no. The woman gives her an injection, and the girl winces. Then, of course, the woman continues to murder her. I thought that the contrast between those two scenes was interesting.

It’s similar to a lot of things about the regime. The lie is suspicious, but the alternative is scary. So, people want it to be true, and they don’t question it too much. The regime continues to put out propaganda and appeasing explanations. Citizens aren’t offered much of a choice, so defiance is very dangerous.

When faced with a difficult choice, both the grandfather and the child allocation bureau make a decision that they believe is right. The grandfather is willing to hurt the sisters to keep them safe in the long run. The child allocation bureau believes that by sacrificing part of the population that the whole of the population can be ‘saved.’ Monday gives up her old family in an attempt to save her new family. In the end, everything that each decision-maker was hiding comes to light.

What Happened to Monday is a film which proposes a world in which the government takes control of the lives of common citizens. We see the struggle of average individuals attempt to take back control and independence from their oppressors. The film follows the story of 7 identical siblings all named after a day of the week as they attempt to hide from the government. Siblings have been banned so as to regulate the world population so the 7 siblings are living the life of one shared identity.

When watching this film I couldn’t help but think about a fairly similar movie called Soylent Green. Both of these movies depict a future with an overpopulated world and a lack of food. Also in both movies the hero takes back the people’s freedom, or at least saves the population from the tyrannical government, by revealing the truth. People in power usually can only stay in power by altering and controlling the information that the population is told. Ironically, in our age of computers it has become increasingly difficult for the average person to obtain high unbiased information and increasingly easy for those in power to control what we hear. It is by hiding the truth that the powerful find a place to thrive, and we must work to avert the possible future portrayed in What Happened to Monday.

What Happened to Monday was a movie that depicted the wish of a nation to see another week during a time when the resources a society has are incapable of sustaining the rising population. The movie was introduced during a time in which each day in a nation’s history brought with it the struggle to survive. With each passing day, limited resources brought ensuing hunger, hopelessness, and despair. During such hard times, the people of a nation are willing to believe in an idea that brings with it the promise of a better tomorrow without stopping to process the realism and consequences of an idea grounded in utopianism. This movie showed how easily one can gain power through unshakable trust. The child allocation act [the creation of a one-child household through the elimination of siblings in society] was an example of mind control at its best. This policy survived for decades because the government fostered utopianism through secrecy and lies. By creating this illusion, the government got parents to willingly give up their children for elimination without doubting the falsehood of an idea. This movie showed the attainment of power and influence once people mindlessly believe in one’s ideals. This is applicable to society because there are many countries in which the government tries to do what is best for their people without caring for the emotional well-being of their citizens. In the movie, we saw a family’s struggle to stay together. Through the screen, their raw emotions, desperation, and fear could be felt. Their struggles open the eyes to how far a person is willing to go to protect the person that has their heartfelt emotions. This movie also touched on how when a person is in a space without judgment, they can carry-out the unthinkable. From what could be gathered, it takes immense courage to break down the walls of a perfectly crafted illusion during a time when people need hope to go on. In all, I thought this movie to be enjoyable and I would recommend for anyone to see the movie.

What would it be like to live only one day a week? To spend six claustrophobic days in hiding, not asleep but eagerly waiting for the bell to ring and for recess to start? To find happiness and peace in a world that seems to regret your very existence? Sure, before I watched the Netflix original “What Happened to Monday”, I’d heard these questions elsewhere. I’d imagined a post-apocalyptic scenario like that, nothing new. But this film made me experience what I’d imagined. The scenario is not too complex: a one-child policy in a world suffering from overpopulation. Seven twin sisters, each named a day of the week, swap lives every day to wear the figure of Karen Settman. When one sister is out in the world, the others are stuck inside monitoring her and making sure nothing goes out of hand. It’s a precarious life – one slip in behavior, people get suspicious, and it’s all over. How can this happen in a world so crowded with people? Well, in this society phrases like “give me some personal space” and “mind your own business” draw investigation from the authorities, the people who spend their lives searching for and detaining people who in their eyes should not have been born. And their prime target(s)? Each seventh of Karen Settman. For me there is always a sense of discomfort in this film. The irony is that while the seven sisters spend their days protecting their existence, they don’t ever get to reveal their own personalities. So it’s almost as if they don’t truly exist themselves. I certainly hope the world never becomes the one depicted in this film, but it was thrilling to peer inside the crystal ball.

As title indicates, this contains major spoilers.

Seeing as my previous post was so poorly received, I thought I might take another stab at this while not buried in work and exams. I’ve said before that I thought this movie was more interesting as a commentary on individuality than on power. Here’s a summary of why, based on what I still remember:

Most obviously, every direct physical conflict involving major characters is one between individuals. Even the mess of a fight that was the first encounter with agents in the sibling’s apartment was more a series of contests between two people than a group battle.

Next, each sister runs into trouble while expressing their individuality. Sunday subverts the unexplained “you’re supposed to be the one who believes.” Tuesday is trying to push back against pressure from her sisters when she is captured. Wednesday is shot while dressed as herself outside and while glaring at her killer with personality, immediately after being denied an epic jump that she has “trained for all her life.” Thursday has the inexplicably damaging skateboarding accident and the subsequent guilt of indirectly maiming her sisters. Friday takes agency of her own death and goes out with a dramatic monologue (rather uncharacteristic for the nervous one) to Thursday. Saturday is killed in the middle of expressing her love for her family in the peak of her subversion of the false persona she’s been building up for years. Finally, Monday dies for her love and her children, the only things setting apart “Miss Perfect” from the role they all share.

Also, the family is always shown as less a team and more a group of individuals (case in point, the siblings at home all but abandon Wednesday when a single agent appears at their door).

And of course, many of the things about power can be translated into points about laws and norms and government oppressing the individual.

I honestly still don’t like the film, but I’ll at least agree that you can get something out of it if you try.

What Happened to Monday? is a sci-fi dystopian action film that was screened this past Friday. The setting features a world a few decades into the future, and the main feature of world is that the government only allows one child per couple. This is due to the severe over population of the world and lack of resources because of this overpopulation. Couples with more than one children are forced to freeze their other offspring for reanimation at a later more prosperous date. The film starts with a grandfather harboring seven identical grandchildren, and devising a scheme to keep them from being frozen by staggering when they leave their residence. As adults, one of the siblings is caught after their existence is seemingly exposed, and one by one they are caught until the sibling Tuesday discovers that Monday had betrayed them to keep her way of life.

This movie deals with a variety of themes, some of which are more developed than others, and one that is visited at many points in the movie is the importance of family. The theme can be seen from the very beginning with the sibling’s grandfather, Terrence, dedicating his life maintaining the siblings’ safety. Doing things that are very hard for him, like cutting off the index finger tip of every child to maintain similarities in appearance, which made him sob, he was devastated he had to do something so horrible to them. Later in the film the siblings can be seen going to great lengths to find Monday after she did not come home, risking their lives at every turn to find her, and in the case of a few siblings giving their life to let the others survive. This theme is visited in a rather complex manner when Monday becomes pregnant with twins. Realizing she could not have children with the life she was living she struck a deal with the government to sell out the other siblings and lead them to their deaths. As to whether this was the proper course of action is up for debate, it both conflicts the theme and affirms it at the same time, being in somewhat hypocritical state. This undercuts one of the main messages of the movie, and leaves the viewer confused as to why the makers of the film opted to add the twist as it seems forced and against the main theme of the movie.

As each year passes, we face more and more problems with growing severity. One such problem is the issue with population control. Eventually, there won’t be enough space for all of us and there will be battles over resources such as water, food, etc. In the film, What Happened to Monday, Tommy Wirkola explores what a future like this may entail. In this dystopian world, political leaders come together to introduce a program to limit population by restricting families to one child. This notion is not that far fetched as China has adopted a very similar policy. Past the twists and turns in the movie, Wirkola raises the question about whether something like this should be widely adopted and if it’s ethical. Personally, at the current rate, policies such as these may be more common and needed as resources are dwindling rapidly. Moreover, the population dilemma provides great incentive for companies like SpaceX to explore the cosmos and try to colonize planets like Mars.

Additionally, the movie implores how government rhetoric sways the minds of citizens. The propaganda and types of phrases the government used made it seem like the people had no chance to retaliate and had to obey the rules. This can be seen all throughout the world where oppressive governments sway their words to make sure their actions go without consequences.

All in all, this movie was fairly interesting and engaging and something that will leave you wondering how society will go forward with the population dilemma.

This past Friday, I attended Rose’s screening of the film What Happened to Monday? Although the movie was poorly written and directed, I do think that the overarching concept was intriguing. In a futuristic society in which resources have become limited due to overpopulation, a one-child policy takes hold, calling for siblings to be put into cryo-sleep, during which they remain alive but dormant until resources become more abundant.

The film is quite thought-provoking. As the world population is growing to previously unseen levels, our society will need to find ways to sustain the Earth for future generations and to limit the hunger, thirst, disease, and expenses that come along with the reduced availability of resources. I think the primary ways to limit population growth are reproductive education and accessibility to birth control. We also simply need to be more conservative in our use of resources.

If a one-child policy were ever to take hold in the United States, it would probably be somewhat similar to China’s one-child policy, in that a fine would be imposed upon families who have more than one child. However, this policy would certainly be controversial for many reasons. Those  bearing the heaviest financial burdens would be residents, often with less money, lacking access to birth control, to reproductive education, and/or to information about potential penalties for having more than one child. How is this fair? Additionally, the main question is: does the government really have the right to control how many kids we have? How much control is too much control? It’s an interesting question to ponder.

What Happened to Monday is an incredible and startling film that embodies many of the elements of my favorite Netflix series Black Mirror. I was initially skeptical about the quality of the movie after reading a short summary and seeing the shameless (one could say rather weak) plot point involving evil genetically engineered food in the opening minutes, but I was soon gleefully found to be wrong as the movie developed into a sci-fi dystopian delight (I’m very fond of the genre, but I will say that this movie is certainly not for everyone, especially those who dislike rather dark plot lines with great violence).

For me, what stood out the most was the shocking contrast (as well as comparison) to the last movie I watched for the Rose Scholars program–Coco. Coco centered itself so much in the power and value of the family–traversing both life and death. What Happened to Monday takes this for one antagonist and smashes it to pieces, and that contrast between the two films was startling to behold.  At the same time, What Happened to Monday serves as a chilling portrayal of a group of sisters who must partially sacrifice individual autonomy to work as a single cohesive unit in great understanding and cooperation with one another to survive their dystopian society.

The acting in this film by Noomi Replace who played these seven identical sisters was remarkable as she was able to portray a unique personality for each sister and create convincing scenes of this individuality. This combined with a strong plot line served to make an excellent and disturbing thriller that is bound to make you walk away thinking of morality and the true cost of sacrifice.

Warning: Spoilers

 What Happened to Monday is definitely an interesting movie. The story’s about a dystopian country/region that aims to address the concern of over-population (And supposedly, dwindling resources) by enforcing rules regarding family sizes and ‘cryo-freezing’ any individual who is an extra addition to the prescribed family size. Usually, this would by every child in a family, except the oldest one. The movie followed a septuplet and their fight against the government/Child Allocation Bureau. The movie had lots of different elements and themes, but the one that stood out to me was that of self-preservation.

To a certain extent, all of the seven sisters were guided by a notion of self-preservation. There are multiple examples. The most obvious was Thursday, who complained about the lack of independence and voiced her displeasure about their lives. If I had to guess, I would have definitely assumed that Thursday was the character that was most likely to sell-out her sisters, or cause some other problem.

Another example was Monday, the antagonist. While on the surface, she appeared to be the one most dedicated, she was very untrustworthy and rather malicious. Visually, she embodied Karen Settman, the identity that the sisters adopted to survive. However, she was probably the most opposed to Karen Settman/the shared identity. Due to certain circumstances, Monday hatched a plan to get rid of her sisters, so that she could live her life without any compromises (Another instance of self-preservation).

Apart from these two examples, there are many other instances of self-preservation, ranging from trivial (Like Thursday’s complaints and arguments) to more significant events (Like Monday’s betrayal). Overall, I think the reason that these instances of self-preservation were evident was due to the context of a movie. In a society such as the one portrayed, utilitarianism is a valued principle. This context made the actions that portrayed self-preservation (And agency) striking.

Last Friday I watched the film What Happened to Monday. While I found the film to be very interesting, it was the premise itself that I particularly liked. The movie was about a society where families were limited to only one child, with any additional children being “put into cryosleep.” The movie followed the lives of identical septuplets, who are hiding from the government by all pretending to be the same person. The sisters, who are all named after a different day of the week, each spend a particular day of the week (the day that matches their name) outside as “Karen Settman.” In order to hide from the government, each of the sisters has to essentially act the same when they are in this role, regardless of their individual personalities. This prevents them from being able to be themselves when they are out in public. While the film quickly moved to focusing on the sisters’ struggle to survive the government’s attempts to kill them, I would have really liked if the movie focused on their attempts to individualize themselves without getting themselves all killed.

The Settman sisters live at an interesting intersection of privilege and disadvantage. Identical septuplets, the sisters live in a world with a strict one child policy. They survive by sharing an identity. Each sister is named after a day of the week, and on that day, they take on the identity of Karen Settman, going out into the world, going to work, and behaving as if they are “the one and only Karen Settman”.

The sisters’ position is thus precarious. If discovered, the Settman siblings believe they will be placed in cryogenic stasis, to be awoken at some indeterminate time in the future, if and when humanity recovers from the population crisis that prompted the institution of the one child policy. The individual Settman sisters are in a very vulnerable position, as they have no legal status and thus no rights or protections within their society.

Karen Settman, however, appears to exist in a position of relative privilege. Karen is employed in a bank – a traditionally lucrative position. As the events of the film unfold, we learn that she is up for a promotion.

The world of “What Happens to Monday” looks more similar to our own than I would have imagined, given that the film begins with an accounting of ecological collapse and an overpopulation crisis. The Settman sisters appear to exist in a capitalist society, capable of producing a variety of consumer and technological goods. It would also appear that class divisions have persisted, given that “Karen Settman” is employed as a banker.

It is clear that the citizens of the world of “What Happened to Monday” face authoritarian oppression. However, I could not help but wonder to what extent people were complicit in supporting the one child policy. As I imagine it, the one child policy, designed to curb humanity’s consumption of food and resources, seems to be what enables a modern, capitalist society to continue to exist. The world could probably support a few more people, but this would likely require that everyone else use and consume a little less. Society would probably look a little less familiar.

In exchange for maintaining the patterns of use and consumption, the standard of living and the society of past generations, the Settman sisters’ society has traded away the legal rights of siblings, and the legal right of individuals to have more than one child.

The one child policy is at least “fair” in the sense that it applies equally to all people in society. Near the end of the film, however, Nicolette Cayman gives a campaign speech for public office in which she proposes that all people wanting to have a child must prove financial stability and the ability to provide for the child’s physical and emotional wellbeing. Thus, we see the burden of reproductive restrictions being shifted towards the disadvantaged. I find this plot point quite interesting. To me, it underlines the way in which more privileged members of society are complicit in reproductive oppression, and how they seek to shift the burden away from themselves.

“What Happened to Monday” is not the most enjoyable film. It is something of a brutal slog. But watching the film does raise interesting questions about the ways people accept oppression if they feel the gain something from it – wealth, safety, etc – and the ways in which members of society attempt to shift the cost of oppressive policies from themselves to others.

Overall Impression:

What Happened to Monday is a fun, action-packed romp with interesting themes of power, fear, and control. Naomi Rapace’s performance as all seven sisters is extremely impressive, on par with Tatiana Maslany’s work as the many clones of Orphan Black. She imbues each sister with different physical and verbal mannerisms that, together with the creative costuming, make them easy to tell apart. The pacing of the film is exhilarating, with unrelenting moments of suspense, action, and drama. It’s incredible impressive how the creators of the film managed to piece together an interesting, enjoyable, thought-provoking movie from a bizarre premise.

Power:

During her introduction, Graduate Resident Fellow Magdala mentioned that the actions of the government in What Happened to Monday reminded her of the writings of Michel Foucault, a French philosopher. While I can’t pretend to know anything about Foucault, or philosophy in general, I do see how Foucault’s writings can be used to analyze the dystopian regime of What Happened to Monday. Foucault focused on mechanisms of power, and he emphasized the connection between knowledge and power. In the film, the government used a registry on individuals, regional checkpoints, reproduction limits, propaganda, doublespeak, and reproduction restrictions to control the people. The government hid the truth about “cryosleep” and dominated the discussion of the subject using euphemisms and relentless propaganda. Through these actions, it controlled the people’s knowledge, and therefore controlled the people, preventing resistance.

Moral Dilemmas:

My primary frustration with this film was its failure to fully explore the interesting moral dilemma posed by cryosleep. If the Earth were dangerously overpopulated, should we freeze some of the population so that they may live their lives in a better, future world? Would it be selfish to keep our children with us at the cost of forcing them to live in our own resource-starved world? How would we even determine when the world was in a good enough state for us to awaken them? Because the cryosleep machine is revealed to be an execution chamber, the film avoids actually having to deal with this question, cheaply justifying the protagonists’ point of view. This practice of dodging tough questions is frustratingly prevalent in science fiction. One recent example of this phenomenon is the superhero film Black Panther. In the film, the antagonist, Erik Killmonger, does make good arguments for violent resistance against oppressors. However, this point of view is never given a fair treatment, because the character espousing it is consistently murderous, cruel, and selfish. His own villainous behaviors mean that the writers never have to morally justify T’Challa’s prevention of the violent resistance. One series that consistently approaches these difficult questions head-on is Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror, a science fiction anthology that explores the relationships between humans and technology. Each episode explores different technology- related moral dilemmas without these types of gimmicks.

What Happened to Monday was an interesting look on the power that catastrophes bring. When people are scared they are more likely to accept overt displays of power. We live in a world of the Patriot Act. The fear and pain that 9/11 brought allowed the government to pass an act that in any other circumstance would most likely have had a lot of push back as the Act takes away many rights of freedom. The movie touched on how in times of disaster people will go along with anyone who says they are doing what is best for survival and safety. It was an action packed movie, while gory at times, I still recommend it.

This science fiction film reveals a dysfunctional authoritarian society that was established to limit overpopulation and avoid famine, by demanding citizens to have only one child. The year is 2073, and the one child policy was so inflexible that there was a police that constantly checked identities and when siblings were found, they were captured and “frozen” until a day when the earth will have more resources. However, when a grandfather Terrence (Willem Dafoe) refused to give up on the identical septuplets (all played by Noomi Rapace), he teaches them to hide and names them each with a day of the week. He also teaches them to go out only one the day of the week, the day corresponding to their name to avoid rising suspicion. They all comply and watch what each other does during the day. All sisters use the same name and identity, Karen Settman, the name of their deceased mother. It is unthinkable, when their grandfather is forced to cut one of the finger tips each one of the girls, when Monday goes out to skateboard and falls and loses a phalange. Years later, one day Monday disappears and does not return home. The sisters then decide to send Tuesday to try to find out what happened. Tuesday is captured by the repressive policy Bureau, who takes out one her eyes, which is used to break in into the family’s apartment. The Bureau, directed by the fierce Nicolette Cayman (Glenn Close) apparently was aware of the seven sisters. The sisters continue to make difficult decisions to try to survive, but at the end, only Thursday survives with the help of Adrien who is looking for Monday. Sadly, Thursday realizes that Monday has made a deal with Cayman and turned on all the sisters in an effort to survive alone when she realizes she is pregnant. Cayman is hiding that the children are incinerated instead of being frozen and Adrien and Thursday reveal her diabolic nature. The government has mislead everyone to believe that the society was saving those children when in reality it was killing them. The movie is very disturbing but it brings awareness of the risk of autocracy in societies that do not have balances within their governments.

Right before watching What Happened to Monday, we were all asked to consider how the power structures in the movie – along with the measures used to enforce them – could potentially connect to things we see in today’s world. As someone who had a limited conception of what the movie was about, I was curious what this discussion question implied in terms of the plot, and expected some sort of Hunger Games-esque system of political control.

My prediction wasn’t totally far off – there’s a villainous, despotic political leader with vaguely well-intentioned but absurdly twisted morals; a crew of underlings, named and unnamed, who follow the leader’s orders unwaveringly and with unclear motive; and a small band of “heroines” (plus an unlikely ally from the enemy side) forced to fight and somehow bring change to their entire society.

But of course, the question was about any parallels this movie draws to real life – which are numerous. The checkpoints were practically identical to TSA security checkpoints in airplanes, all the way down to the random selection for questioning. Likewise, the level of police brutality displayed in apprehending the siblings in the film was startlingly similar to videos from riots and protests across the nation in just the past few years (read: Ferguson, MO or Charlottesville, VA). And of course, the CBA’s use of ruthless, unrestricted, no-matter-the-cost force in covering up a blemish on their record is an image which, while more of a suspicion than an actuality in the United States, is perhaps still pertinent to many other nations.

Ultimately, these tropes are common in all kinds of dystopian fiction, and obviously don’t mean that the United States is going to start incinerating non-firstborn children anytime in the future. However, it’s a bit unsettling to note just how many commonalities there are between the society in What Happened to Monday and our own – are we about to reach our own dystopia?

While I know the after-film discussion focused more on abuse of power, I was really more bothered by the blind acceptance of the people in this week’s Friday film. The general population never questioned what they were told was best by their government — best for them, the planet, and their children. Personally, I think my main issue with the film was primarily the submissive attitude of the people, which essentially created the setting for the plot of this film.

Various questions came to mind for me the second Cayman made a public announcement that all “siblings” would be processed into a medically induced cryosleep:

1. Where are you going to physically store all the sleeping bodies?
2. How much energy does it take to keep the bodies in this preserved state and does this outweigh the supposed “benefits” of this proposition?
3. Who is going to raise the children when all their known relatives are deceased?
4. How does this actually help the planet?
5. Aren’t there more humane alternatives?
6. Do they really expect parents to comply with this legislation?

One of my friends even brought up the idea that this sounds like Nazi Germany.

It’s unfathomable to me that the general public would agree to this. I’d even go as far as saying that most parents would subject themselves to “cryosleep” before giving up their children to such a process. It would take an oppressive regime, with sole and absolute power, to make something like that happen.

The entire basis of this movie is mob (AKA herd) mentality. I don’t even think you can go as far as saying that supreme powers were a factor because the entire resolution is based on the revolt of the people.

The first time I was introduced to a dysfunctional government was in 9th grade when my English teacher assigned up 1984 by George Orwell. That book scarred me for life. I could no longer the government as one that protects but one that is trying to control their citizens.

What Happened to Monday? is a movie that reminded me so much of Orwell’s novel and what is so scary is that I can see it happen. When I read Orwell, I saw some of the things he wrote in the world we presently live in but it was not as extreme as the book. However, one- child only laws are already present in China and the increasing population has made many governmental wary of resources running out.  The year 2073 is so far away that many things could change and the government might become stricter with enforcing the law. I could see it happening and it was scaring me. The last straw was when we, as the audience found out the children were not “frozen” but incarcerated. I had lost all hope in humanity.

However, I think the ending pretty much gave me the optimism I needed. Acts of humanity were everpresent in the movie, the love Monday had for her children, the grandfathers love for all the girls. That love makes sacrifices and although Monday’s was a selfish love her act of love is exactly what humanity is about. It is selfish and that is why tyrannical governments can never win because the love people have for their loved ones is greater than the laws placed by tyrannical governments.

After watching What Happened to Monday, Magdala led a discussion on power. The government in the movie has total control over the entire population–how did it get to be like that? Well, it’s obvious that the government had constant surveillance of the population (with checkpoints, ID bracelets), but I think the growth/development of power in just a small group of people (Nicolette Cayman, for example, the mastermind behind the no sibling policy) comes from events that are even before that.

One thing I think that contributed to the rise of power of this small group of people is perhaps the desperation of the population when the Earth was facing a famine (introduced at the very beginning of the film). The result of the starvation of the population probably led to a few people standing up to say, “hey, here is a solution”–and really desperate people are willing to try anything, including outlawing siblings and not questioning how they’re making them fall asleep. I feel like this is a trend seen in history as well–when a nation or a group of people is facing a lot of hardship, they are willing to turn to practically anyone with a potential solution. And if that person happens to have ill intents, then that person or group of people who end up holding the power will hold the power for quite a while until someone challenges the status quo and bring them down.

The genre of dystopia is quite interesting because it draws on a little bit of history to make a “prediction” on what could happen. Hopefully something like what happened in this movie would never happen, but I can definitely see where parts of the plot line came from. For example, checkpoints could be inspired from martial law in different parts of history where checkpoints are/were effective, and the no siblings policy is pretty much exactly like the one-child policy that was in China (of course without the whole freaky, processing siblings and killing them part…).

Interesting and thought provoking movie, especially with the discussion at the end. I do wonder what the meaning of dystopia (or dystopian genre) is though. We’re quite far away from everything that happened in this movie, so I’m not sure if this is truly a “warning” to society. So I guess that leads me to wonder–what’s the motivation behind this film?

For the seven sisters who stay at home all year long in the film, the most exciting moment is to go out. Yet the most painful thing is that when they go out, they must hide their true self and act as others. Monday is in line with the parents and the public. Except Mondays, each sister has no real identity. Their common pain is “being forced to act as Karen” and cannot “be yourself”.

What about us in the current world? The pain of the confused people lies in the lack of individual identity. There is no self at all, or does it not know who the ego is? What does the true self look like? Therefore, some of us only wear masks and play other people in accordance with the standards of society and parents.

The same point is to hide identity and pretend to be someone we are not. The difference is that the Seven Sisters know the true self, have an independent spiritual world and personality, and most of us neither know our true self.

The film What Happened to Monday drew many parallels to other dystopian films such as The Hunger Games. I found myself not as drawn to the aspect of the abuse of power and the poverty that the government used to try to justify this abuse of power but more drawn to the relationships between the siblings. By the end of the film, it is revealed that Monday was the one that exposed the seven siblings and that she did it for her boyfriend and for the children she was about to give birth to. Monday tried to push the blame off herself, saying that she didn’t kill her siblings and that she didn’t plan how they were going to die. This is something that I don’t agree with. While Monday couldn’t have known exactly how the government was going to kill her siblings, she likely knew that they would suffer a gruesome death.  I was also confused by why Monday had to make this decision in the first place. Would Monday’s children not suffer the same fate as only one child would be allowed to live? Couldn’t Monday raise her children with all of her sisters? I guess I was shocked by the amount of love between all the other sisters and Monday’s lack of love for her sisters. All the other sisters were willing to die for each other but Monday was willing to have her sisters die for her.

This week, I attended a Flora’s Film Friday in which we watched the sci-fi thriller “What Happened to Monday”. The movie followed the Settman sisters, who are identical septuplets living in a society with a one-child policy. They all have their own personalities within the confines of their apartment, but outside of those walls, they are all Karen Settman. With the government on to them, the Child Allocation Bureau (CAB) is hunting them down one by one to cover up the fact that seven siblings were able to maneuver through the world without getting caught for 30 years.

The biggest sticking point of the movie was how real the government felt and how the actions it took are not too different from every government around the globe. Dr. Cayman, the head of the CAB, used doublespeak repeatedly during her speeches. While the truth is that she killed every sibling, she would say that the siblings would wake up to a better future. She would say that she was saving the human race, but in reality she was killing countless people. Doublespeak is used constantly by politicians and was one of the most effective tools used by murderous regimes like Mao’s China or Stalin’s Russia. For instance, the policy that directly lead to the death of 60 million Chinese citizens in the span of 25 years was called “The Great Leap Forward”. The irony in the name speaks for itself.

Magdala, the GRF hosting the event, wanted to focus on how power controls the masses and spoke about the Patriot Act in America. The thing she said that was most interesting about that was how once government takes power over a certain domain, it never returns it. The Patriot Act was supposed to be a temporary measure during the war on terror, but it has been in place for 15 years now. This is not the first, or last, example of this happening in America alone. The federal income tax was historically used as a temporary measure to fund wars. Lincoln used it to fund the civil war and it was repealed in 1872. However, once Woodrow Wilson reestablished it to help fund World War I efforts, he helped it become a constitutional amendment and now the income tax is an unquestioned function of government. The question lies, if that can happen at any point, if we don’t stop bad policy from passing today, will our kids even question whether or not it is a bad policy?

This is the first Rose Scholars event I’ve been to that I would have left midway if I didn’t need a post for the week. It felt like an amateur was given a huge budget but very little supervision to make a movie out of whatever they wanted. The storyline was mediocre, but the execution was absolutely terrible. Poorly-used cliches and one-liners as well as a “rule of cool/drama” approach to realism turned this film into as much of a flaming heap of garbage as the literal burning trash thrown in halfway through.

Cliches-

• Friday is the smart but socially anxious one (how has she even acted as Karen for so long?)
• “Identical” siblings can mimic each other perfectly (down to the biometrics the bracelet presumably collects)
• Get shot anywhere and you’re dead…
• …except if you need to die a more dramatic death later
• Hit literally anywhere? Instant bloodstains on your face (ex. everyone leaving the crashed car)
• Wednesday hanging off a cliff/building as antagonist slowly approaches
• Armed patrols always in ready position with gun ready to fire
• Fall unconscious? You’ll be fine when you wake up (Thursday after Friday bomb)
• “I did it for love…and I’m pregnant too” (though this one would have been ok by itself)
• The pompously mysterious “I know your secret” coworker
• The government is lying to cover up something really horrible
• Not suffering makes dying ok
• Monday’s babies are most important (in giant tank in the middle of the other babies)

Realism issues-

• Unexplained “Federation” replacing modern countries
• No one is suspicious that you cannot visit people who are in “cryosleep”
• No one is suspicious about signs of activity in room when “Karen” out?
• Why does their grandfather know how to mess with the bracelets (without any visible change, even)?
• Seriously, how did the government keep the truth a secret for 20+ years- the septuplets are 30 and couldn’t have been more than 10 in the flashbacks- when any random agent’s bracelet has access to the entire system?
• Servers destroyed-> systems still working
• Friday can do whatever she wants on systems that she should know nothing about
• Kind of nitpicky, but most of the displays are clearly meant to look cool but would not actually be useful
• Smoke grenades do not affect Thursday and Friday breathing
• Agents fail to surround buildings they are storming
• Saturday seems to start liking Adrian for no reason
• Thursday somehow can get away from Monday and change and clean up when Monday still alive and still has the gun
• Main antagonist not nearly personable enough to be a successful politician and the general public apparently hate her policies too (enough to attack the CAB agents without question as Wednesday runs)
• No one questions Adrian hanging around the “cryosleep” room after handing over Thursday even when he’s probably not supposed to know the truth
• “cryosleep” machine seriously resource intensive despite supposed shortage
• likely “concussions” only last for a few seconds
• Going through wall of hidden room leads to empty building

Contradictions-

• “We have to tell each other absolutely everything” -> turns out was hiding relationship (how is so much missing time not suspicious?)
• “we are working for a better tomorrow”-> shoot random civilians because they’re kind-of-not-really in the way
• “we need to keep this quiet” -> send tens of armed soldiers running into a civilian building and shoot smoke grenades in the middle of the day
• Wednesday shot in the head-> “she died by falling”

Other things-

• Creepy, oversized fetuses
• Awkwardness/forcedness of everything with Adrian (from his introduction to scene at septuplets’ apartment to scene at his apartment to Thursday threatening him in the car)
• Saturday shot in head from back-> head sent backwards
• Wednesday’s holographic punching bag
• Thursday can operate the “cyrosleep” machine without any user permissions
• Skateboarding accident somehow leads to losing part of a finger
• Agents find button to hidden room immediately (clearly know its there)
• Sudden background music changes

I see where Magdala was coming from with the “power” angle, but the film’s failings completely overshadowed any message I got. There are so many movies and even real-life stories that illustrate power and its methods much more effectively.

That’s not to say the film was all bad. There were a couple scenes I liked, like Friday’s last scene and Saturday’s reveal of her virginity (changing the image she’s build up until then) and her willingness to sacrifice it to better their chances at survival. But yeah, generally did not like the film and probably would have walked out at the impromptu finger surgery if this wasn’t part of Rose Scholars.

This Friday I watched the film “What Happened to Monday”. It was a strange film to say the least. I think that the futuristic world portrayed in which everyone is obligated to only have one child and all children are locked away in “sleep mode” until an undetermined future utopia where everything is abundant and wonderful is heavily unrealistic. In terms of quality of acting, all the characters were difficult to believe and everything they said and all their actions didn’t really make sense to me. Firstly, there was no backstory. The female leader is oddly cold and unfeeling. I have a hard time believing that people would allow her to take power. Secondly, the seven siblings’ polar opposite identities was distracting and real twins are not that vastly different.

Next, I don’t understand how the entire world would place all power in the hands of one individual. It just doesn’t make sense and wouldn’t happen in the real world. In addition, an overpopulated world doesn’t mean everyone should have only one child. China’s One Child Policy proves this doesn’t work in the end. Recently, they even revoked that law. More focus should be on educating people in developing countries and helping social issues improve. Maybe if that happened, new ways could be found to sustain resources. I was also quite outraged at the level of violence in the movie. If more attention was payed to the story, maybe all these plot holes would be fixed.

In conclusion, I found the cinematic elements lacking in creativity and logic. However, the questions of power and how people use it is interesting. They could have been more central to the plot.