Mark Reviews Movies: LAST CALL (2020)

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | November 24, 2020

Dylan Thomas, the famous poet, walked into the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan in the early morning hours. "I've had 18 straight whiskies," the legend tells us he said, before adding, "I think that's the record." He collapsed, entered into a coma, and died in a hospital. That version of Thomas' death is presented at a press conference near the end of Last Call, an intriguingly stylistic but ultimately hollow biography of the poet, without any flourish. It's just the cold, hard, and wholly unromantic truth.

There is, after all, more than enough romantic flourish in Thomas' poetry, which made the Welshman a star in the United States by the time of his death in 1953. People, especially young women, adored him, leading to a reading tour at colleges across the U.S. The movie's version of Thomas is aware of this and almost seems to fear it. He tells the bartender, who ends up serving him the majority of the likely fatal drinks, what the poet worries will be his legacy: to be read by swooning young women and teenage boys who are convinced they have suffered more than any other person.

Such observations, made by an assortment of characters—Thomas' wife, friend, doctor, and even bartender—and the poet himself, certainly prevent writer/director Steven Bernstein's movie from becoming some kind of fawning portrayal of Thomas. It doesn't need much help in avoiding that, though. Thomas' own words and actions prevent us from seeing anything other than a miserable, purposefully or unknowingly suicidal man, completely in love with words, as well as how his words affect others, and hating everything else—mostly himself.

In other words, the movie is a decided and intentional drag—a gloomy, despairing portrait of an alcoholic, who happens to be a beloved poet, as he sets off on one final binge. The question becomes less if he knows whether or not those 18 double shots of Scotch, measuring about three or four fingers in the glass, will kill him. It's really whether or not he cares one way or the other. By the end of the movie, we're not sure if Bernstein wants us to care, either.

For sure, Thomas, played with gusto by Rhys Ifans, is a big personality, holding court in the bar and commanding the podium at his staged readings, as inspirational music swells beneath his command to "Rage, rage against the dying of the light" and his pondering that "death shall have no dominion." As far as we can tell, the movie's Thomas is drunk through all of this. When he drinks a raw egg at the very start of this story, a thought later comes to mind: He might have been drunk even before the last bout of drinking has begun.

Thomas' last day at the bar serves as the story's framing device. He gives every shot a name, as helpful and, as it's slowly revealed, intelligent and sharp-eyed bartender Carlos (Rodrigo Santoro) pours them. A couple of regulars are at the end of the bar, giving Thomas a steady audience, and the poet drinks, opines, boasts about his fame, bemoans his tortured life, and drinks some more.

During one interlude, his local doctor Felton (John Malkovich) performs an autopsy on an alcoholic (who may or may not be the poet himself) for medical students. Alcohol is a contradiction, he points out to the fainting students, which gives a person a sense of euphoria, even at gradually depresses the brain. That's basically the path of the story at the bar—the early highs leading to deeper and deeper lows.

Other details emerge in flashbacks, such as his awful marriage to Caitlin (Romola Garai), who once loved him greatly but now has to plead for money for their children before he drinks it away, and his relationship with fellow poet John Malcolm Brinnin (Tony Hale), who arranged the college tour and just wants Thomas to read the manuscript of his book. Penny (Zosia Mamet), the student who set up the upcoming college reading that Thomas is certain to miss, is in love with him or, better, the man who could write like he does, and she's on a path toward uncomfortable disappointment. The cynical Felton's suggestion that Thomas stop drinking becomes an unheeded warning. In the evening, the doctor is called to the bar, but he refuses to check the color and consistency of Thomas' vomit, lest he get any mess on his fancy suitcoat.

If Bernstein's point is to de-glamorize both Thomas and the romantic notion of the addicted genius, he has accomplished that goal with some success. The movie doesn't leave us feeling sympathy or sorrow for Thomas (although some vague flashbacks to his happy childhood and some clearer ones about the earlier times in the marriage certainly suggest we're supposed to feel some kind of loss for what was and could have been). It definitely, though, makes us pity him and, through Carlos' late assault on his poetry, re-consider what purpose Thomas' poetry actually served.

A person's death, especially under the circumstances presented here, can tell us something about that person. Last Call erroneously seems to believe that it can tell us everything.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products