Mayday is visually stunning with great lead actors but unfortunately that isn’t enough to make up for the sluggish pacing.
Mayday was on my must watch list for the Sundance Film Festival 2021 because of its bold and intriguing concept. I truly wanted to love this movie, but I just didn’t. True it is visually stunning and I really dug the war aspect, but the pacing causes too much distraction and confusion. The story itself is very muddled and although bold and risky, it is poorly executed at times.
The concept of this movie is very intriguing on paper. Ana is working a dead end job where she is overlooked and sometimes abused by the men in her workplace. During a storm, there is an outage at her work and she is transported to an alternate world. This world is stuck in an endless war and there she meets a group of other young women. This is where the movie feels almost Peter Pan like, and I started to call this group the lost girls.
These women spend their days luring male soldiers to their death by pretending to be damsels in destress and calling “M A Y D A Y”. As a woman, this whole part didn’t really sit well with me. These men have not done anything wrong, that we know of, and this group of girls is taking pleasure in their deaths. This happens over and over, which continued to irritate me as I watched. It all feels a bit too extreme, and I was thankful when Ana started to realize she isn’t a ruthless killer and wanted to leave.
So is this a dream? Is she dead? This question never really gets answered which is part of why the story feels too complicated. There were moments I had to rewind, thinking I had missed something, only to discover that I hadn’t. Mayday has too much going on at once, while not explaining it well enough.
All that being said, the two lead actors Grace Van Patten and Mia Goth do the very best they can with the script and the writing. The cinematography is also incredible. There are lots of gorgeous shots in this film, especially when it comes to the water and island. The war aspect made for some great costuming as well. Unfortunately these things don’t make up for the muddled script and distracting pacing.
About Mayday
An unusual storm is approaching, and it’s about to change everything for Ana (Grace Van Patten). After a short circuit at her workplace mysteriously transports her to an alternate world, she meets a crew of female soldiers caught in an endless war. Along a strange and rugged coastline, men face the stark truth lurking behind damsels who appear to be in distress.
Under the leadership of Marsha (Mia Goth), Ana trains as a sharpshooter and discovers a newfound freedom in this uninhibited sisterhood. She soon senses she may not be the ruthless killer they expect, though, and time is running out for her to find a path home.
Tessa Smith is a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer-approved Film and TV Critic. On Camera personality and TV / Film Critic with 10+ years of experience in video editing, writing, editing, moderating, and hosting.