Post-apocalyptic films tend to be expressions of the id of a nation. Most American end-of-the-world films are about a steadfast belief that the old order can somehow be recreated. The Mad Max films are Australia embracing its inner carnage. But British films of the end times are much gentler, as the characters keep calm and carry on while accepting Armageddon with a sort of wistful sigh. So it is with the grandfather of all such films, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, and its blackly comedic progeny like The Bed Sitting Room or 2021 Fantastic Fest selection Silent Night.
And so it is with Littermates: Even though codirectors Scott Tinkham and Michael Woloson and most of the core cast are American, this made-in-England curio is somehow still a distinctively British selection for Fantastic Fest. It’s also the next title to be released under the Alamo Drafthouse’s Alamo Exclusives shingle, created to give a theatrical life for festival favorites that lack cinematic distribution.
Littermates seems exactly the kind of curio for which the program is designed, a quiet work that is by turns whimsical and mournful. The end of the world is happening somewhere beyond the tree line of the bucolic country estate on which Chester (Oliver Woolf, The Peril at Pincer Point), Liam (Joey Bader), and Mel (Kaylee McGregor) reside. All they know of the outside comes from pre-recorded radio messages, the sound of distant gunfire, and the occasional groan of sirens telling them to strap on a mask and head for the bunker. Not that Liam and Mel know much of anything. Those aren’t even their real names, just what Chester calls them after he finds them, bloodied, confused, incapable of speech and with their memories seemingly erased.
One could easily imagine this devolving into a bleak tale of mental and physical torture, but Tinkham and Woloson clearly feel that would be a hat on a cataclysmic hat. The longtime collaborators on multiple shorts don’t want their feature debut to end with a whimper or a bang, but much more of a gentle pat on the shoulder and a nice cup of tea. Chester is exactly as amiable as he looks, although the reasons for the cold nuances of his actions become clearer over time. He’s just some bloke contending with people reduced to tabula rasa, and so in his own slightly jovial and concerned way he is trying to tend to their needs. He’s become an adoptive single father, and that’s why Bader and McGregor play Liam and Mel as children within adult bodies. It’s almost like Yorgos Lanthimos’ breakthrough film, Dogtooth, if the family weren’t all delusional sociopaths.
If Chester is daddy, they are bickering foster children, with Liam still upset that this girl turned up and ruined everything. At the same time, she is his best friend. What could have been an elaborate and over-extended acting exercise becomes more elegiac and evocative, with the pair flailing around like a pair of eight-year-olds who aren’t quite sure what to do, or what they want.
It’s easy to get caught up in Bader and McGregor’s quietly engrossing and often hilarious interplay, all pouts and giggles, especially since it will bring a sting of recognition to anyone who grew up with siblings. What’s just as fascinating is Woolf’s depiction of Chester, a character who is as defined by his absences as he is by his presence. The clueless big kids have little more idea of what’s going on beyond the gates than a child peering out of their bedroom window. Yet Woolf’s occasional panicked expressions, and the world he builds to keep his wards safe, give light and shade to his portrait of a man trying his absolute hapless best.
Through him, and through Tinkham and Woloson’s gentle grasp of the tragic silliness of the situation, the old mantra of “keep calm and carry on” is no longer a worn-out meme, but a defense of sorts against the dying of the light.
Littermates
Alamo Exclusives Sneak Peak
Fantastic Fest runs Sept. 17-24 at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar. Badges and info at fantasticfest.com. Follow our coverage at austinchronicle.com/fantastic-fest.
