With AI and advancing technology increasingly woven into our everyday lives, Michael Cusumano’s Last Minute offers a warm and funny glimpse into a world that now feels remarkably distant. Set in 1989, the film follows Jackie (Charity Schubert), a single mother whose 12-year-old son waits until the night before a major school assignment to begin his work. Without Google or smartphones to fall back on, Jackie is pulled into a frantic late-night scramble to help him get it done.
Jackie’s night quickly becomes a community affair, with favors being asked, problems improvised around, and one solution leading to another problem. The comedy comes from the escalating desperation of a crisis that is, in the grand scheme of things, barely a crisis at all. Yet Cusumano finds something genuinely funny and affectionate in Jackie’s determination to help her son, even when his predicament is entirely of his own making.
Last Minute never takes a stridently technophobic stance, nor does it pretend that life was necessarily better before the internet. Instead, it looks at what convenience has displaced. When information was less readily available, solving a problem could mean calling a friend, knocking on a neighbor’s door, or simply figuring things out for yourself. The film celebrates those small acts of resourcefulness and the communities that formed around them, while quietly asking what has been lost to some taps on a screen.
Charity Schubert gives Jackie a grounded warmth that holds the film together. There is a lovely tension between her exasperation and affection, making her feel like a mother dealing with a problem that is both frustrating and utterly familiar. While nostalgic, the film is equally interested in the messiness of the world it remembers and its unexpected turns. It is a gentle reminder that when there is no shortcut to the answer, you sometimes end up with a better story.
Brian Cotter
