Last Performance, the fifth feature film from award-winning European director Edwin Brienen, is set in the tumultuous New York theater world. Julia, a European actress who relocated to New York to try and make the big time, stars in an avant-garde theatre play, directed by the eccentric Magda. Inspired by obsessive philosophers such as Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and LaVey - "Forget the weak, the virtuous ones and the compassionate ones" - Magda explores the dark side of life. Julia's co-star, herein, is Cooper who has an abusive relationship with the sexually frustrated Tom. Tom, unable to accept his homosexuality, in turn exploits Julia for his own sexual adventures. Cooper, enraged by jealousy, sets out for revenge and his actions, herein, trigger an inexorable wave of disintegration and misery. Soon, fact and fiction become indistinguishable as Julia too becomes the author of her own demise.
Acting
Eva Dorrepaal commits to annihilation; you believe every unravelling second.
Direction
Brienen's European eye on NYC grime finds poetry in pretension.
Director
Edwin Brienen
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Brienen was part of the Dutch 'no wave' cinema movement, bringing 1980s NYC underground aesthetics back to the city that inspired them.
The Anton LaVey epigraph isn't edgy window-dressing—Magda's philosophy of cruelty mirrors how the film itself treats its audience.
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