7/10
Men are Obsolete
8 November 2015
Men are obsolete. In the 1950s women start to get pregnant on their own, and give birth only to girls. The world doesn't need men anymore. This isn't the only bad news for males. An uptight, extreme and conservative female coalition is in power, and payback is harsh. The few remaining men are locked up in "sanctuaries" and darted with tranquilizers if they dare to leave. Their food is laced with estrogen to keep them docile. Menstral cycles are synchronized and the world becomes one big sorority house. At 37 years old Andrew is the youngest man in the world. He is a fluke and anomaly, born when women are giving birth solely to girls. He has a permit to leave the sanctuary and live as a domestic worker with the family of Terra and Iris. When Iris starts a relationship with Andrew, the two create a media firestorm. As with Alice in Wonderland, Gulliver's Travels and other satires, this alternative history and mockumentary helps us step outside of ourselves and see the world from a different perspective.

It is enlightening as well as hilarious, and slightly scary and unsettling, to imagine this role reversal. Who would have thought a professor of men's history would ever be needed?! While the film is limited in terms of depth, funding and acting, I thoroughly enjoyed the out-of-the-box thinking and puns about human nature. It is good that this is just a fantasy (and yet I know a few women who would like this world to happen, at least for men who don't instantly agree with them). Seen at the Toronto International Film Festival 2015.
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