"It's time to stand up, with eyes open, ears down to the ground. A change is long overdue. So, wake up. Question everything. Are you awake?"—One by One (2014)
For the 19th TMR Movie Roundtable we welcome back our good friends Frank Johnson and Antony Rotunno for a three-way discussion on the cult British "truth movement" film One by One (2014), starring the well-loved (and much-missed) comedian and actor Rik Mayall, written and directed by Diane Jessie Miller.
A young woman, Dion, is befriended by an unconventional group of people while she's working in a UK town cafe. Although her policeman boyfriend is not happy about this, because he thinks she should aspire to greater things than waitressing and considers her new pals too idealistic and eccentric, Dion sticks with her friends because they bring a fresh sense of joy and peace into her life. But when tragedy strikes, Dion's life is turned upsidedown; and thus begins her journey "down the rabbit hole" as the group reveals to her the unsettling truths that they have come to understand. Incredulous at first, Dion eventually comes to the same realisation, and the film closes with (what seems to be) the initial stages of the anticipated calamity.
Join us as we discuss the production, consider it in relation to the so-called "truth movement", and ask what the filmmakers might have meant by admonishing audiences to "Wake up, now!"
