No Men Beyond This Point

Mark Sawers's faux documentary imagines an alternate history world in which women hold all the cards. Sawers interweaves modern-day interviews and charts, graphs, animated segments, and archival footage (both fabricated and real). Andrew (Patrick Gilmore), the primary subject, serves as a housekeeper for a married couple, Terra (Tara Pratt) and Iris (Kristine Cofsky), who have six children. Heterosexual unions appear to be a thing of the past, and at 37, Andrew is the youngest man in the world, literally part of a dying breed. The shift from patriarchy to matriarchy began in the 1950s when virgin births increased in frequency. Academics, such as Ajala Bhatt (Rekha Sharma) from Oxford University and Gordin Trescott (Ken Kramer) from the University of Toronto, weigh in on the phenomenon. Says Trescott, "Nobody likes being told they're becoming obsolete," but most virgin births or parthenogenesis resulted in female children. Over the years, some men moved to camps and settlements, while others joined the Men's Liberation Organization. With women in charge, peace reigns throughout the land, but no Internet exists. Electric cars are the norm, but there isn't any space program. In some ways, the film battles stereotypes about women, but in other ways reinforces them. When Andrew steps out of the bounds in which men must operate, he winds up losing his job and he moves to a sanctuary, but his inability to live by its rules changes the course of history. No knee-slapping comedy, No Men Beyond This Point often feels more uncomfortably plausible than amusingly improbable. A strong optional purchase. (K. Fennessy)