‘All The Lost Ones’ Gets Lost In The Woods
The dystopian fiction genre is expansive and imaginative. Conceptualizing distant futures allows commentary on present reality or reframing what 'normal' looks like. Survival-thriller All the Lost Ones lands somewhere in the middle, taking a small-scale approach in capturing the experience of a single group of survivors whose tranquility is disrupted by a militia group leader. Stakes rise, tension escalates and lives are lost – but all of it feels extremely contrived. Without solid grounding, All the Lost Ones flails.
The film takes place in a future where climate change has wreaked havoc on the earth, and clean water is scarce. North America is under the control of the militant extremist group the United Conservancy (UC) which declares that all citizens must declare allegiance to the UC. Against this backdrop, a group of survivors struggles to exist while resisting control, including Nia (Jasmine Mathews), her sister Penny (Vinessa Antoine), and her boyfriend Ethan (Douglas Smith). The opening scene finds them celebrating six months of survival in a lakeside cabin, drinking and dancing away their cares. Within the familial bubble is the distraught Nia, who confesses to Penny that she feels like she's not "doing" enough by staying in hiding. She gets her chance when a routine food run is disrupted by UC supporter Hank (Lochlyn Munro) and the group's once-safe abode is discovered by a militia group.
The UC resembles the wave of right-wing nationalism currently surging through America and reinforced by President-elect Donald Trump. UC figures throughout the film are openly racist, staunch believers that "God protects the UC," and claim that they are securing the liberty and freedom of the nation. Director Mackenzie Donaldson boldly posits her film as a fiction hewing closer to reality than other outlandish dystopias but falls upon stereotypes and political posturing to illustrate her point. As characters sneer lines such as "Are you a fucking snowflake?" the threat of these villains feels more and more false. The beliefs of these people and the root of their prejudice are never characterized. Donaldson's narrow scope fails to craft a truly realistic future world, even when adequately capturing its protagonists' struggle.
Tension is built effectively as characters struggle to remain hidden or execute dire escapes. Survival pushes everyone to extremes such as sacrifice and killing that they never deemed possible and creates divisions between loved ones — but many of these moments exist to serve the film's larger political message rather than speak to the actual characters. In one tense moment, Ethan suggests they turn themselves into the militia, and Nia cries "I'm Black, Ethan, there's never been a choice for me." Moreover, the lasting impact of the strife undergone is never observed. The camera does not stay with characters in the in-between, in the moments of rest between struggle when they must grapple with their larger situation or tamp it all down to push through. There is no quiet in the gaps between violence, it's replaced by sweeping shots of the Northern Ontario wilderness or overhead drone views that redundantly establish the setting. As a thriller, All The Lost Ones successfully engages from moment to moment but struggles to elicit deeper meaning from its events.
There is one primary force acting against the UC, the "E.E." or the resistance, and Nia is constantly looking toward this for hope even when surprised with a major discovery: she's pregnant. Being on the run with a new life to protect heightens Nia's sense of urgency, as well as her fury at the world around her. The writing and acting do little to service this plot point though, and Mathews is constantly dialed up to ten – her face scrunched in anger, or letting out muffled wails in hiding. The over-the-top performance leaves much to be desired as the film's anchor and feels repetitive.
Nia herself, as an expectant mother, is supposed to resemble hope, but the way the plot unfolds prioritizes devastation with little significance over hope. Without spoiling anything, one of the biggest losses in the film is caused by an accident that is convenient plot-wise and avoidable. The film's tragedies exist to tug at heartstrings and help Nia along – but Nia herself is only a rough sketch for the audience to observe. Where Nia ends up at the end of the film reminded me of Children of Men, though her pregnancy carries much less significance here than the character in that film. The group’s dynamics bear similarities to The Walking Dead, their tension with the UC and trek through the woods is similar to The Last of Us. The primary difference, however, is that those other dystopian media have larger truths to share about the experience of survival and the bleakness of the future, which this film sorely lacks. All the Lost Ones is derivative of better dystopian media, and fails to leave a unique mark.
