A teacher gives his philosophy class a thought experiment to tinker with. The apocalypse is imminent and a bunker near by but only with room for 10 out of 22. So he assigns an occupation (like engineer, chemist, poet, etc) to each of the students and they have to decide who lives or dies. This scenario they run thru 2 different times with various twists before the apparent over-achiever among the over-achievers in the class takes over and turns the tables which leads to a rather surprising ending that changes the synopsis of the movie in its entirety. In short you could say it's a thought experiment within a thought experiment.
Overall the movie was great but falls short in a few minor things - so an 8/10.
The best part of the movie is probably also it's biggest weakness and why it got such a low rating (5.7). The ending is a bit too ambiguous which makes it easy to miss the point of the whole thing and it just flies above your head. Even though it uses the principle of Chekhov's gun for all the elements it would have been better to spend a little more time to explore the motivation of the 2 main characters in order to provide the necessary contrast of what the actual Gedankenexperiment was. Or simply change the dynamic of the conclusion so they have to speak a bit louder instead of mumbling. Also the narrative arc from what the teacher describes as life at the beginning and the world he lives in after the last day of school is kind of lost.
Definitely worth watching, but make sure you focus on the details and what happens in the classroom otherwise the whole experience might be ruined.
Overall the movie was great but falls short in a few minor things - so an 8/10.
The best part of the movie is probably also it's biggest weakness and why it got such a low rating (5.7). The ending is a bit too ambiguous which makes it easy to miss the point of the whole thing and it just flies above your head. Even though it uses the principle of Chekhov's gun for all the elements it would have been better to spend a little more time to explore the motivation of the 2 main characters in order to provide the necessary contrast of what the actual Gedankenexperiment was. Or simply change the dynamic of the conclusion so they have to speak a bit louder instead of mumbling. Also the narrative arc from what the teacher describes as life at the beginning and the world he lives in after the last day of school is kind of lost.
Definitely worth watching, but make sure you focus on the details and what happens in the classroom otherwise the whole experience might be ruined.