What Happened to Monday (2017)

Written by EmmanuelGoldstein on July 28, 2023

The Anti-Matrix

When I saw the poster, I was expecting it to be a cheap Matrix rip-off. I was so wrong; this is the Anti-Matrix. The similarity to the Matrix are only superficial and very intentional and only to mock the Matrix.

This becomes very obvious when we see that rooftop scene actually play out (it ends quite differently than it does in the Matrix). Why would I love a movie that mocks the Matrix? I am not saying the Matrix is a bad movie, but there is a more sinister aspect to it, that the makers of this movie picked up on and this movie is their response.

Because if there is no "reality" and it's all just an illusion created by the "Architect" the imprison us, then human life becomes cheap. Because their lives are all just an illusion anyway and if they die, their souls might even wake up and become free of the Matrix. Or at least that's actually the conclusions some lunatics came to after having watched the Matrix.

So in this movie we are faced with an autocratic system that's actually completely modeled after real life China with a similar view on human life - viewing average, everyday humans as similarly expendable. And to justify their State wide "family planning" they promise the "superfluous" siblings that they imprison a kinda Matrix of their own where they put them into pods similar to the ones we see in the Matrix and where they are then induced into a sleep state in which they dream and have a sort off life of their own, even if only in their heads. So it is a kinda Matrix, except that at the end we of course find out that their Matrix is... well... I don't want to give spoilers. You just have to watch it if you haven't seen it. It's a great movie with some superb acting.