''What Happened to Monday'' (known in several territories as ''Seven Sisters'') is a 2017 science-fiction action film directed by Tommy Wirkola and written by

Max Botkin Max Botkin is an American screenwriter and producer. Botkin's original script for '' What Happened to Monday?'' was featured on the 2010 Blacklist for best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood. Career He began writing for TV with '' Wolverine an ...

and Kerry Williamson. The film stars

Noomi Rapace Noomi Rapace (; ; born 28 December 1979) is a Swedish actress.Karen Olsson, ''The New York Times Magazine'', 27 May 2012, p. 26. She achieved international fame with her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish film adaptations of the ''Mil ...

Glenn Close Glenda Veronica Close (born March 19, 1947) is an American actress. In a career spanning over five decades on Glenn Close on screen and stage, screen and stage, she has received List of awards and nominations received by Glenn Close, numerous ac ...

and

Willem Dafoe William James "Willem" Dafoe ( ; born July 22, 1955) is an American actor. Known for his prolific career portraying diverse roles in both mainstream and arthouse films, he is the recipient of various accolades including a Volpi Cup Award for ...

. ''What Happened to Monday'' was released theatrically in Europe and Asia, with

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

distributing the film in the United States, United Kingdom, and Latin America on August 18, 2017. The film received mixed reviews from critics.

Plot

In a

dystopian A dystopia (lit. "bad place") is an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives. It is an imagined place (possibly state) in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmenta ...

near future,

overpopulation Overpopulation or overabundance is a state in which the population of a species is larger than the carrying capacity of its environment. This may be caused by increased birth rates, lowered mortality rates, reduced predation or large scale migr ...

has resulted in a strict one-child policy, enforced by the

European Federation A federal Europe, also referred to as the United States of Europe (USE) or a European federation, is a hypothetical scenario of European integration leading to the formation of a sovereign state, sovereign superstate (similar to the United Sta ...

's Child Allocation Bureau. Any illegal children found by the C.A.B. are taken and placed in indefinite cryosleep. After the death of his daughter during childbirth, Terrence Settman secretly raises her identical septuplet daughters. To conceal their existence, he names each child after a day of the week and trains them to live a shared life under a single identity, "Karen Settman". Each sister is allowed to go outside only on the day corresponding to her name to ensure their secret remains undiscovered. One night, Monday fails to return home after work. The next day, Tuesday retraces her steps and discovers Monday received the promotion they were up for and met their co-worker Jerry at a bar. Before she can investigate further, C.A.B. agents detain her. At the C.A.B. facility, Tuesday meets presidential candidate and head of the bureau, Nicolette Cayman. Cayman reveals she is aware about the sisters' existence and dispatches C.A.B. agents to their apartment to eliminate them. The sisters manage to kill the agents, but Sunday is also killed in the process. Learning the agents used Tuesday's severed eyeball to bypass the building's retinal scan, the sisters suspect Jerry may have disclosed their secret. The next day, Wednesday leaves without disguising herself and confronts Jerry. He reveals that "Karen" received the promotion after transferring millions of euros to Cayman to fund her campaign. After a C.A.B. sniper kills Jerry, Wednesday flees his apartment. The sisters remotely guide Wednesday to safety but are interrupted when C.A.B. agent Adrian Knowles arrives at their apartment, concerned about "Karen". Surmising that Adrian is in a relationship with one of them, Thursday convinces Saturday to accompany Adrian. At his apartment, Saturday, a virgin, learns which sister Adrian had been seeing. She covertly links their bracelets while sleeping with him, allowing Friday to hack into the C.A.B. surveillance system; the sisters believe they have found Monday in a holding cell. Meanwhile, C.A.B. agents corner and kill Wednesday. After Adrian leaves his apartment, C.A.B. agents arrive and kill Saturday after she tells her siblings Monday was dating Adrian. The sisters' apartment is raided simultaneously by a C.A.B. squad led by Joe, the bureau's head of security. Admitting that she cannot survive on her own, Friday sacrifices herself by detonating their apartment to allow Thursday to escape and rescue Monday. After learning about the attack, Adrian rushes back to the sisters' apartment, where Thursday confronts him in his car and blames him for her sisters’ deaths. Adrian insists that he loves Monday and agrees to help rescue her. He smuggles Thursday inside a body bag into the C.A.B. headquarters, where Thursday secretly records footage of a child undergoing cryosleep. However, instead of being preserved, the child is

incinerated Incineration is a waste treatment process that involves the combustion of substances contained in waste materials. Industrial plants for waste incineration are commonly referred to as waste-to-energy facilities. Incineration and other high ...

. Adrian and Thursday find Tuesday alive but missing an eye in a holding cell. They search for Monday, only to learn that she revealed their existence to Cayman. At Cayman's campaign fundraiser, Thursday and Monday fight in a restroom, during which Thursday accidentally shoots Monday. Meanwhile, Tuesday and Adrian broadcast the footage of the incineration, shocking the attendees. As the panicked crowd turns on her, Cayman angrily confronts Thursday before her bodyguards restrain her. Monday then emerges the restroom holding a gun; mistaking her intent to kill Thursday, Joe shoots her. Adrian, in turn, kills Joe. As the crowd flees, Monday reveals to Thursday that she is pregnant and asks her not to let the C.A.B. take her unborn twins. Thursday realizes Monday betrayed her sisters in order to protect her children; Monday dies shortly after. The Child Allocation Act is abolished, and Cayman faces the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

for her actions. Thursday, Adrian, and Tuesday watch Monday's and Adrian's twins develop in an artificial womb. With their individual identities no longer suppressed, Tuesday decides to rename herself Terri, while Thursday chooses to continue being Karen.

Cast

as the Settman siblings (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday), septuplets sharing the identity of "Karen Settman". *

as Terrence Settman, the siblings' grandfather. *

as Nicolette Cayman, the head of the Child Allocation Bureau (C.A.B.). *

Marwan Kenzari Marwan Kenzari (; born 16 January 1983) is a Dutch-Tunisian actor. Starting his career in 2008, he first came to prominence for his role in the 2013 film ''Wolf'', which earned him a Golden Calf award for Best Actor. Since 2016, he has been port ...

as Adrian Knowles, a C.A.B. security guard and love interest of Monday Settman. * Pål Sverre Hagen as Jerry, Karen's coworker. * Tomiwa Edun as Eddie, the septuplets' doorman. *

Robert Wagner Robert John Wagner Jr. (born February 10, 1930) is an American actor. He is known for starring in the television shows ''It Takes a Thief (1968 TV series), It Takes a Thief'' (1968–1970), ''Switch (American TV series), Switch'' (1975–1978), ...

as Charles Benning.

Production

The film was originally written for a man, but director Tommy Wirkola had always wanted to work with

. He pitched the idea of having a female as the protagonist to producer

Raffaella De Laurentiis Raffaella De Laurentiis (born 28 June 1952) is an Italian film producer. Films which she has produced include ''Conan the Barbarian'', ''Conan the Destroyer'', ''Dune'', '' Prancer'', '' Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story'', all films in the ''Dragonhe ...

, who agreed to the idea. Wirkola was inspired by films such as ''

Children of Men ''Children of Men'' is a 2006 dystopian action thriller film directed and co-written by Alfonso Cuarón. The screenplay, based on P. D. James' 1992 novel '' The Children of Men'', was credited to five writers, with Clive Owen making uncredite ...

'' and ''

Blade Runner ''Blade Runner'' is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott from a screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Di ...

'' due to their realism and world building. The film was shot in

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

over 94 days with a budget of $20 million.

Release

''What Happened to Monday'' premiered at the 2017

Locarno Festival The Locarno International Film Festival is a major international film festival, held annually in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narr ...

. The streaming rights for the film were purchased by Netflix.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, a

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

, reports that 61% of 36 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 5.9/10. Its critics' consensus says: "This high-concept sci-fi action thriller will make you stress-eat all the popcorn while Noomi Rapace (times seven) goes on a murderous spree to find out ''What Happened to Monday'', but it may still leave you hungry in the end." According to

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which calculated a weighted average score of 47 out of 100 based on 12 critics, the film received "mixed or average reviews". Jessica Kiang of ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' called it a "ludicrous, violent, amusingly dumb sci-fi actioner", remarking that although it is full of plot holes and Rapace's characters are thinly characterized, it is likely to become a

cult film A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a cult following. Cult films are known for their dedicated, passionate fanbase, which forms an elaborate subculture, members of which engage in repeated ...

References

External links

Happened to Monday''
on

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