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NO MEN BEYOND THIS POINT (Canada 2015) **
Directed by Mark Sawers

Review by Gilbert Seah

NO MEN BEYOND THIS POINT has been accurately described by The Globe and Mail paper as ‘A Handmaid’s Tale’ meets Michael Moore.

The film is done in a comedic documentary style, the way director Michael Moore does his films like WHERE TO INVADE NEXT. and BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE. The subject is fictitious, that of a female society in which men have no place in – as in Margaret Atwood’s A HANDMAID’S TALE.

The film setting is 1953 where it is documented that a pregnancy has occurred without sex. There is no intercourse involving men fertilizing the female’s egg in the ovary. Director Mark Sawers centres his film on a character by the name of Andrew Myers – supposedly the youngest man in the world. Not only have men been removed from the equation of reproduction, but all babies are now only female. He is hired as a nanny to do the ‘housewife’ chores in a family headed by two women.
To have his film made believable, Sawers spends a fair amount of screen time explaining how this fact of nature could come about. Through humorous mock interviews with doctors, experts and women, the composition of the baby in terms of XY, YY chromosomes are explained. It is also shown how the sperm is now prevented from entering the ovary through mock footage. All this is fine except that too much time in the film is spent on it, with the film being monotonous stressing a fact that has already being made made. But no explanation why only females are born except to point out that nature has taken a change in its course as men are obsolete.

Sawers spends time with Andrew’s family showing how a community will change without men. Females pair off. They might fall in love with each other or just live together for companionship because it is more convenient.

Also in the film are added a group of men that are unhappy with this fact. The reason is that men have ben forced (as they are now a minority) into all male sanctuaries where they just watch TV, play chess and can cause no harm. This forms the film’s funniest and most keenly observant segments.

But after spending all this time on the possible existence of a manless society, Sawers takes the opposite route. Andrew falls in love with one of the woman he works for. The couple become an ostracized couple, hunted down. The film looks much like the story of ZERO POPULATION GROWTH in which a couple have an extra child escape from authorities. It is at this point that Sawers’ film starts taking too much that it can chew. It abandons the documentary format and turns into a fiction film.

As it is a small budget film with no name actors, the amateurism of the performances also comes through loud and clear. The actor playing Andrew, for example looks totally out of place just as his character is out of place in the new world of women.

NO MEN BEYOND THIS POINT is a film with an interesting enough concept that does not play out as well as expected. Too many issues and too much time is spent on authenticating the possibility of the premise.

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