The Girl From Monday (tbc)
- Run time: 1 hour 24 mins
- Genre: Comedy
- Release date: 1st January 2004
- Starring: Bill Sage, Sabrina Lloyd, Leo Fitzpatrick
- Directed by: Hal Hartley
Plot Synopsis
Playfully serious, intellectually nimble, cautiously romantic and marked by a smart, off-handed wit, Hal Hartley's latest film represents business-as-usual for the director in all these major areas. What's new, however, is a science-fiction element that allows Hartley to sharpen and shape his wry musings into a potent satire set in an all-too-recognisable, very-near future. A social revolution has left the US under the governance of huge media conglomeration MMM, with bar-coded citizens treated as living investments, the value of which can be boosted by acts of self-interest and sexual activity. Hartley regular Sage plays Jack, a marketing executive who has helped fashion this brave new world, although he's also leader of a counter-revolutionary terrorist group that's out to bring MMM down. However, it takes an alien visitor - the title character, played by Brazilian model Tatiana Abracos - to help Jack see individuals as something other than part of a corporate collective. Although instantly recognisable as 'a Hal Hartley film', working on digital video has allowed the director to experiment, and the result is exciting and surprisingly sensuous. The film's multi-textured look and feel is very much of a piece with the its range of ideas, emotions and incidental details, making this Hartley's most stimulating offering in years.