Zak Hilditch
These Final Hours

It's coming.

The nightmare of the end of everything has seeped into our society. Sooner or later the day will come and the end will speak to us. And thus, the theme has been tackled by cinema and literature: the psychological and real apocalypse of Von Trier's "Melancholia", the unknown aftermath of "The Road" by the great Cormac McCarthy, the shattered humanity of the recent "The Rover" by David Michod. Zak Hilditch's "These Final Hours" sits halfway between the imminence of the inevitable ("Melancholia") and the scene in "The Rover", to which it is a very close relative.

A storm of fire is descending upon the world and has already wiped out several nations. It's advancing toward Australia. The end is near. There is only the choice of how to live these last moments. James (a surprising Nathan Phillips) leaves his girlfriend and saves little Rose. The goal is to reunite her with her father, whom the girl has promised to spend the last minutes of life with.

Supported by cinematography even warmer and more "brilliant" than that of its cousin "The Rover", the feature film by the unknown Zak Hilditch manages to condense together science fiction, emotions, but also some decent visual punches, especially at the beginning of the film. Hilditch makes all the clichés of the genre his own, and his film is another version of the father/son story that McCarthy told in "The Road". After all, it's difficult for a genre film not to owe something to other works that have somehow defined the genre itself.

Without aiming to be a cornerstone of science fiction, "These Final Hours" stands out for its solid direction and an equally successful structural setup, although the film leans more towards sentimentality in the second half. But it must be said that the whole thing is consistent with the narration: for the protagonist James, that journey with the girl is a sort of redemption before saying goodbye to everything, the last glimmer of morality in a world heading toward complete ruin; Rose is purity, the angel who, like all other human beings, is taking her last breaths. The ecstasy she will be forced to ingest is a sort of "rite of passage", as if this were to make Rose's imminent fate more acceptable.

Science and nature have triumphed over God and man, his "creation" now destined to perish. There is nothing that can change the state of affairs, only the acceptance of one's condition. There is only and inevitably the ineluctability of the end.

"These Final Hours" does not redefine the canons of the disaster movie, but it stands out as a well-crafted product that, besides entertaining, also makes one reflect sufficiently. Furthermore, it is another confirmation of the good health of Australian cinema, which in recent years has often stood out for titles and directors who are advancing one of the most interesting movements currently in the cinematic landscape. Titles like "The Proposition", "Animal Kingdom", "The Rover", "The Babadook", and names like David Michod, John Hillcoat, Jennifer Kent, and others are proof of this.

"If this was God’s perfect plan, then he's an idiot."