A pandemic in the future causes the downfall of society and massive deaths. A walled city is run by The Bureau. Food, jobs, and housing is scarce outside of those who work for the Bureau which will provide for you and your family for 20 years if you take "The Deal." After 20 years you die.

Tala (Sumalee Montano) has taken the deal to provide for her daughter Analyn (Emma Fisher) who is now 19. With 5 days to live, they discover Analyn needs a kidney transplant. The Bureau can't schedule one for 6 months, long after the Deal has expired. The twosome scramble to change the date, locate her biological father, or find an escape from city which we are told has death on the outside.

Unless you are a member you have limited benefits, similar to nations run by a communist party or Illuminati. The movie felt like a prequel to something like "Logan's Run" or "In Time." The film was mostly drama and a statement about access to care based on wealth or privilege.

Guide: No swearing, sex, or nudity.

I kinda expected, going in, that this would be an interesting movie, if not particularly 'good', and probably kinda predictable...and to a point it is kinda predictable, I guess, but it's still well worth watching.

The cast are all pretty solid, especially Emma Fischer as Analyn, and the story is actually really good, even in the over-crowded area of post-apocalypse society/over-bearing government/etc movies/ Like, it's not particularly different from most of them insofar as the overarching story - "society collapsed due to **INSERT EVENT**, the new government rule with an iron fist, the haves vs have-nots divide is worse, our hero/ine must escape to a better life" - but it excels in that they really are just trying to get to a better life rather than take down the corrupt rulers.

And that ending? Pretty damn good indeed.

This film felt more like a Lifetime TV movie trying to enter the sci-fi genre. Conceptually and visually, it had tons of promise. Although not revolutionary to the genre, the idea was a good one, and the sets and location shots fit the theme perfectly.

But where it really missed the mark was in the sloppy screenplay and mostly cheesy dialogue. Some of the cast's dialogue were smh moments that seemed to come from the Lifetime dialogue handbook. The narrative was all over the place and was riddled with many plot and technical issues.

The casting and performances were decent for the most part, but you can tell they lacked much needed cast direction from Orsi Nagypal. Many lines and facial expressions didn't match the scenes, and the actors seemed lost in how to say and how to do their scenes properly.

Even the score went from a working "tense sci-fi" theme to some loud overbearing Lifetime themed score. It just felt off, and that's really too bad because I wanted to like this more, and not have to cringe and shake my head at some scenes.

This film would've been more enjoyable had all the cheesy scenes and dialogue cut out, and edited properly into an enjoyable short-film sci-fi. It's a generous 5/10 from me, mostly for the decent cinematography and sets/location themes, and to the cast who I'm sure tried their best with what they had to work with.