I Like Monday

remixes, cultural daydreams, meaningless meditations

Set in Greece, the Argyris Papadimitropoulo film Monday is at times laborious, and meandering, and adrift, which I can totally get with because that’s basically how I would describe chunks of my life over the last couple of decades. Monday’s general setup—stylish location/two people meet/relationship-testing ensues—are my favorite types of setups (thank you the Before Trilogy, Call Me by Your Name, Lost in Translation + Normal People’s Italian vacay episode).

The film stars Sebastian Stan as Micky and the glorious, and totally new to me, Denise Gough as Chloe. Before this I wasn’t totally on board with the whole Stan thing—he always reminded me of that funny, hottish dude you dated after college when you moved back home who was stupidly ripped from working out with his mother at LA Fitness. But after seeing Monday, I completely understand what all the fuss is about. Both he and Gough go balls to the wall in this thing, it’s non-stop and real and raw and that’s really what film does at its best.

From slipping the Donna Summer “I Feel Love” track into the movie-scape, to the impossibly stylish clothes Micky and Chloe sport that bend towards casual cool, to the (no spoilers, of course) creation of a character who possesses total autonomy over her body—Monday does so many things right that whatever winding, purposelessness that breezes into the story from time to time, only serves to make it feel like a more recognizable version of real life.