There is no getting around the fact that Last Night on Earth (2024) is an incredibly sad movie.  Indeed, I am going to spoil the movie now so as to potentially save you some grief: everyone dies.  Then again, one could zoom out from this and say that all of us will eventually meet this end.  It is no revelation, and you can take that in a Biblical sense.  What the film is about is the end of the world and how a few humans cope with the coming apocalypse.  If you assume this means there will be Christian characters, then you would be correct.  What might be sadder than such a tale is how these followers of God are portrayed, but that is an argument for another time.  Anyway, I am going to power through this somber synopsis because I have a lot to say about this story from a Catholic perspective.

Do not be fooled by Last Night on Earth’s less than somber beginning.  However, because it is told in a non-linear fashion, I am going to give the story to you in the proper chronological order, even though this will not make the conclusion any happier.  We start with Holly (Leven Rambin) and Ryan (Jake McLaughlin) driving to a party.  They have been married for a few years, but they are just as happy as the day of their nuptials.  The soiree is to celebrate their friends’, Brad (Jackson Davis) and Pauline (Jamie VanDyke), engagement.  Though Brad should be more celebratory, the aerospace engineer is pulled away by a call from the government.  He is on the phone for a while, and Ryan notices that Brad is getting increasingly agitated.  Soon, the reason for the worry is displayed on everyone’s cell: there is a meteorite coming towards Earth that will hit in six months and destroy all life on the planet.  In the coming days, talking heads on the news confirm that it is going to be an extinction level event, although the hosts try to suggest that the space rock might miss us.  In any case, society devolves into chaos, with food shortages, looting, and other forms of violence.  While at the store attempting to exchange their jewels for supplies, Holly and Ryan run into Brad.  Up until this point, there had been a vague hope that the worst could be avoided.  Brad’s advice is to get as far away from the city as possible.  At some point, then, Holly and Ryan get themselves an Airstream camper, enough to sustain themselves until the end, and head for the mountains of Tennessee.  Once there, they do little else other than exist as husband and wife, though it is not long before they find neighbors.  The first is a dog, which belongs to a family that had committed suicide.  The ownership of the pet is confirmed when they run into Carla (Dee Wallace), and her two grandchildren, Joshua (Sutton Schultz) and Miriam (Lauren Stafford).  It is evident that Carla is Christian, and she invites Holly and Ryan to come to their camp of about twenty.  Holly and Ryan politely decline and return to their recreational vehicle (RV).  Following a swim in the lake, they are greeted by Gabby (Sohvi Rodriguez) and Gene (Shane West).  These newcomers are apologetic about encroaching on Holly and Ryan.  Again, they are desirous of their privacy, but Gabby and Gene come back to the camper with a number of fish.  They share a meal, and their conversation turns to the craziness Gabby and Gene endured before they got to this secluded spot.  Judging from their demeanor, they did not survive through Christian forbearance.  It is enough to make Holly and Ryan feel uncomfortable, but luckily the others leave soon thereafter.  However, Gabby returns the following day while Ryan is outside shooting target practice.  She notes his gun, but also comes on to him until Holly interrupts.  Gabby covers the awkwardness by asking if they have any alcohol to spare, and they oblige.  The incident points to a lack of perfection in Holly and Ryan’s relationship, which also includes a suicide attempt on her part before they came to the wilderness.  Yet, they are also quick to forgive one another, which at least makes their marriage healthy.  At any rate, the following day is the title one, and they are expecting to just be with one another.  However, Gabby shows up in the camper frantic, looking for help.  It is a ruse, though, to get Ryan’s gun.  Holly and Ryan briefly get away from Gabby and Gene, but the chase ends with Holly being captured and Ryan handcuffed to the steering wheel of a pickup truck.  Once Ryan is free, he gets some help from Carla and company, though her initial advice is to forget about Holly.  Eventually, Carla gives Ryan a gun, which he uses to rescue Holly.  The result of the action is Gabby killed and Gene with a crossbow bolt in the stomach.  They leave Gene to die and once more prepare for the eponymous event.  Yet, Gene decides to get revenge, finding Ryan, who is mortally wounded by being stabbed with a knife.  Ryan has enough strength to tell Holly to run, and she flees towards Carla’s camp, hoping to find assistance.  Despite them having offed themselves Jim Jones-style, she is able to find a gun to brandish at Gene.  He realizes that it is over, particularly with minutes to go, and lets her get away.  With that, she runs back to Ryan and they are in each other’s arms when the asteroid hits.

One could argue that there is a certain romantic feeling to the fact that Holly and Ryan are holding each other for the Last Night on Earth.  If and when I get married and I have to face a similar end, I could not think of a better way to go.  Yet, despite the Christians’ sin by killing themselves, Carla does have a few things to say that jive with Catholic teaching.  The one I would like to focus on is when she says that it is best for us to not know when we are to die.  The statement contradicts their final act, but let us take it at face value.  At the same time, God has the ability to grant people knowledge of this eventuality.  There have been saints who have been blessed with this information.  For most of us, the important thing is worshipping God instead of seeing the exact moment on which we will shuffle off this mortal coil.  What is ironic about the movie is that this sentiment is perhaps expressed best by an avowed agnostic, astronomer Carl Sagan.  The first thing you see is a quote from him, which reads, “For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.”  This bears some further contextualization.  Sagan did not deny the existence of God, saying the universe is too big to deny this possibility.  Had he been an adherent of any one religion, like Catholicism, he might have known how much this matches with Church teaching.  Still, one might argue that how could a tragedy like in the movie point to a loving God?  There is no easy answer to such a question, and to run the risk of giving you a cop out, the only response I could say is that it is a mystery.  All the same, if there is one thing we can be sure of, it is that if we can love one another, and God above all else, then it will not matter how we die.  We will have God waiting for us on the other side.

I am on the side of not recommending Last Night on Earth.  As I said in the introduction, it is an incredibly sad movie, and I prefer happy endings.  Indeed, I held out hope until the final credits that the meteorite would miss them and everyone would live.  Alas, this is not the case, and I hope you can find something better to watch.