Thinking Aloud After Watching, What Happened to Monday? – Victor Akintade

What Happened to Monday starts out highlighting the current issues we face as a planet, pointing majorly to the effect of overpopulation, and steps taken to fight growing population against less food, which further births the problem all over again. The movie finally settles for a solution, and that is Birth Control. Simply put, a one child policy for the whole world, to ensure that food equals population, and restrict/reduce population explosion.

Here comes the protagonist, or rather, the protagonists of the movie, the Settmans, Karen Settman to be exact. Miss or Mrs Karen Settman — her marital status unknown — gives birth to seven identical girls and dies, leaving the burden on her grandfather who takes them in. He names them according to the days of the week, Monday down to Sunday. This was done after the Child Allocation Act was enacted, restricting child bearing to a single child per family.

Terrence Settman raises his grandchildren, ensuring they have the skills to survive after he is gone, which they do until they are due for a promotion at their place of work. They have lived under the identity of Karen Settman for a good number of years. They operate a system whereby for each day of the week, they leave their home according to their names. This is quite the system, as it takes a good measure of discipline and self-restraint for seven girls to grow up together, for more than twenty years and not mess this system up. They manage to accomplish this feat by sharing information on their daily activities, at the end of the day. Everything goes well until Monday refuses to come home one day. It is important to know that these seven girls are identical, but not the same; they each have their individual personality, and habits, and for Monday who is always the up and doing among them, her absence is unexpected, and is met with anxiety and fear.

They find out that they have been ratted out, and then Tuesday disappears the next day and their world, and its perfect scheme comes crashing down. A secret force working for Nicolette Cayman — the woman behind the Child Allocation Act — begins to kill off each child one after the other and let’s just say, seeing the movie would explain its outcome better.

This brings to light a growing concern in the society, the problem of population growth, and what the future holds for the planet. This movie does not result to yet unrealistic solutions, such as space travel, or the culling of an entire race or quota of the earth’s population; rather, it resolves this dilemma by the means of A-one-child-per-family policy, which when examined objectively, is quite the reasonable option. It has its shortcomings and it is far from perfect, but it is still one of the most practicable options left for mankind on the long run.

On another note, it directs a focal light on the ills perpetrated by governments, behind the backs of the masses, while lying with deceptive smiles pasted on their faces to the public.

I, for one, agree with the pessimistic approach taken by Nicolette Cayman in addressing the growing scourge of population. Maybe not now, but sometime in the future, a drastic action will have to be taken, if the world’s population continues to grow at the rate at which it is. I do not support the irresponsible taking of life for the sake of survival, but at some points in time, drastic measures must be taken to ensure the survival of the future, as noted by Nicolette Cayman. It would be foolhardy to focus on the now, fulfilling the pleasures of now while damning the survival of future generations.

But as noted earlier, it addresses a growing global concern, proffering a practicable solution with its attendant ills; understanding this would help put things in perspective, raising questions worth addressing such as: will there really come a time where population growth will pose a global dilemma?

Secondly, is there any practicable solution without setbacks? If there is, will the world be able to actually work together to preserve humanity? Also, are there other global earth threatening situations we face as a planet —asides population growth— and are there any preventive solutions in worse case scenarios? There are many more questions to be answered. Nevertheless, this movie provides about two hours of intrigue, suspense and fun. It is a movie worth watching.