Seeking A Friend for the End of the
World, is one of those movies
that reads like a mashup of other movies. In this case, it reads like
the combined bones of The Road and
Melancholia with
comedy skin stretched over them. And while that sounds like a hard
combination to pull off, Seeking A Friend
actually does admirably.
The
plot is concerned with Dodge (Steve Carrel) a quiet, emotionally
repressed man who, like the rest of the world, has just discovered
that the last attempt to stop an asteroid about to hit the world has
just failed. As the world falls apart around him, he meets and bonds
with his odd neighbor Penny (Kiera Knightley). He promises her that
he can get her to a plane to get her back to England to be with her
family, if she can help him get to an ex girlfriend.
What
this ends up amounting to is a combination character based comedy and
road trip movie, as Penny and Dodge drive across the country seeing
how different people are dealing with the coming end of the world.
And despite it's PG-13 rating, the depictions of people losing it as
the end approaches can get shockingly nasty sometimes. I don't want
to spoil, but I'm actually a little impressed that they didn't cop
out on their depictions of people losing it (up to and including
assisted suicide).
This
is primarily an actor driven movie and Steve and Keira do good jobs.
Keira comes off better, given the more interesting character and
getting a really nice bit of acting done during a phone conversation
we only see one half of. Steve Carrel does alright, in a character
seemingly designed for his oddly underplayed acting style. Steve is
an actor that I don't know how to feel about, as he's best known as
being a comedy actor, but with the exception of a pair of supporting
roles I don't much like his straight comedic roles (I can't stand The
Office for example). On the
other hand, in more serious, darker comedy roles, he frequently comes
off pretty good, and his performance here is easily his best since
Little Miss Sunshine.
The
direction is pretty good, certainly ahead of the director's previous
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.
It has some nice juxtaposition of the odd ordinariness of certain
things with what's coming. The screenplay is okay, even if the story
is going where you expect and it's a little on the nose sometimes.
But the combination of what's coming and some great acting from the
leads allow it to be occasionally rather touching. Neither of these
things are precisely top tier, but they're both above average, which
is all you can ask really.
It's
not perfect. The second act is a little overlong, the screenplay is a
little blunt sometimes and it sometimes seems to be bouncing
back and forth between practiced cynicism and clinging to hope, which
can give you whiplash occasionally. But those minor issues don't stop
it from being very good. I know there's a lot of stuff out right now
you'll want to see (I'm seeing some of the other stuff later this
weekend) but what I do know is that this one is a nicely made and
interesting movie. Definitely recommended.
Elessar
is a 22 year old Alaskan born cinephile and he refuses to spoil
whether they cop out on the ending or not.
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