AI is making you lazier. We’ve lost our resourcefulness, the capacity to think on our own, and the wonderfully human ability to make the impossible possible through nothing but sheer willpower. And as somebody who was on campus when ChatGPT hit the world like a ton of bricks, I’ve seen firsthand what over-reliance on machines can do to those previously intelligent – spoiler alert: It’s bleak. Who needs the library anymore? Who needs to manually find references? Who needs to conduct proper research when it’s all just one prompt away?
Certainly not the youth of today, or even the youth of yesterday, for that matter – the robot has come for us all, and our day of reckoning looks closer than ever. But what about a time before ChatGPT? Before the internet, even? A time when finding out five facts about plutonium took a team of mountain-moving adults to figure out.
Award-winning writer and director Michael Cusumano takes us back to that prehistoric period with his Louisiana Film Prize Grand Prize-winning short, “Last Minute.” A story – set in 1989 – that centres on a resourceful single mother whose 12-year-old son has left his homework to the last minute. And with ChatGPT decades away and the internet still around the corner, the two must pull in every favour they can to get the job done.
After setting the stage for the story by letting us know of the time period in which the film takes place, the short picks up by reminding us all of that sinking feeling I’m sure we’ve all had: Realising the piece of work we thought we could leave to the last minute was not, in fact, something to be half-arsed. And when Jason’s mother returns home from a long, hard day’s work, she’s met with a sight no parents want to see: Their child, with a face like a smacked arse, standing in front of them, with bad news at the tip of their tongue.
And it’s here that Jackie (Jason’s mother) learns she has one night to save her son’s final grade by producing five fun facts and a visual aid to represent an element of the periodic table of her son’s choosing. But herein lies the problem: her son – a “Back to the Future” fan – has chosen plutonium. Who the hell knows anything about plutonium? Certainly not Jackie. Today, she’d be just a few clicks away from being the world’s leading expert in the subject, but with the resources available to her in 1989 (her ingenuity and creativity), she’s got work to do, and it’s here that we get our movie.
With the bookstore out of what they need and the library closed, facts about plutonium are hard to come by. But there is one thing they can rely on: A little something called community – an idea foreign to us in this modern, digital age where much of our social life exists in an intangible cyberspace. But here, a beautiful portrait is painted of the power that comes with a functioning network of real people willing to help in any way they can. Neighbours, family, co-workers, whoever it may be – as long as they can aid the hunt for scientific success.
Cusumano’s direction is especially strong here, with genuinely humorous cuts, sleek camera movements, and even an “Oppenheimer”-esque black-and-white sequence employed to distinguish fiction from reality. An impressive outing, demonstrating a strong vision and confident hand behind the camera with a clever pen to match, was brought to life by a heartwarming mother-son two-hander between Charity Schubert and Espyn Doughty. Together, these two depict a moving picture of the unwavering love between a mother and son – in just 15 minutes, evoking the hardships, joy, and difficulties of single parenthood.
This is really, really solid. A wholesome community and family tale, but more importantly, a necessary reminder of just how easy the world has it today, whilst begging the question: Are we sure that’s a good thing? The loss of community, the ease of access to anything we desire, the lack of brain power used each day – big ideas in such a short space of time. Excellent stuff.
![The Father’s Shadow [2019]: ‘Fantasia’ Review – The Horrors of Unresolved Grief](https://www.highonfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/The-Fathers-Shadow-highonfilms-768x509.jpg)
