MOVIE REVIEW

LAST Night” is a rare and welcome reminder of how original, provocative and moving a low-budget independent film can be.

Nicely timed for the millennium – and essential viewing for the 18 percent of Americans who believe that the apocalypse will happen in their lifetime – it’s a film about the ways a selection of quirky Canadians choose to spend the last night of the planet.

How or why the world is ending is never explained (although darkness no longer falls), but when the movie opens there are six hours to go, and the timing of the end has been to known to everyone for two months.

The central character is Patrick (Don McKellar), a mildly obnoxious and self-involved architect. Although his parents – who throw a guilt-laden Christmas dinner on the last evening – want him to stay with them for the end, Patrick is determined to be alone and in his apartment.

But when he gets there he finds Sandra (Sandra Oh) on his doorstep. She’s been trying to get home to her husband after her car was destroyed by part of the crowd of people filling their last night with pointless vandalism.

Sandra enlists Patrick’s help and he takes her to the apartment of his friend Craig (Callum Keith Rennie) to borrow a car. Craig has spent his last weeks trying every kind of sex that’s ever caught his fancy, and as Patrick arrives, Craig’s high school French teacher (Genevieve Bujold, still beautiful) is just leaving.

There are moments when “Last Night” feels like a slow episode of the “Twilight Zone,” and others when it feels more like a play than a film. Despite this staginess, it’s unpredictable and ruefully romantic, and Sandra Oh is very good in a role that could not be more different from her Rita Wu in TV’s “Arli$$.”

Sarah Polley has a tiny, insubstantial role as Patrick’s sister.