The Gist:
Scientists discover a large asteroid heading towards earth and announce that it will make contact with and destroy the planet in 21 days.
Seeking a Friend For The End Of The World tells the story of distinctly underwhelming insurance salesman Dodge (Steve Carrell) and his next door neighbor Penny (Keira Knightley).
Both abandoned by their partners at the announcement of the end of the world, they form an unlikely friendship and embark on a road trip together to find Dodge’s high school sweetheart; and gain some closure on things left unsaid before total annihilation.
The Review:
Okay, let’s not mess about. I can testify first hand that this movie looks, sounds and can be expected to be fairly crap. This is the kind of film that I would actively ignore for as long as possible when browsing for a movie, until I am really scraping the barrel for stuff I have not seen; and ultimately end up watching it. Which is what happened. Perhaps these low expectations facilitated my surprise but I have to say, this was a really enjoyable watch.
The end of days concept is familiar to us all and there are apocalypse dramas, comedies, thrillers, romances and bores a plenty out there. This picture actually does a great job of dipping into all of the above genres at varying depths, without becoming too pigeonholed. I suppose credit for that can go to writer and first time director Lorene Scafaria, who put together a fantastically interesting and more than sufficiently amusing storyline, laden with timely quips and riddled with thought provoking ideas of the probably erratic and diverse reactions people may have in this scenario.
Steve Carrel was the real surprise for me in this picture. I had wrongly assumed that Carrell would be slipping seamlessly into his typical no thought required funnyman role, which we have seen him fill; very well I might add, in an abundance of sitcoms and movies. In this film I really do believe he was the best man for the job, he played the character really well and let the clever script do the work for him, his nail on the head portrayal of a meek character allowing for a lot of well-timed ambiguity, that allows you to empathize with Dodge and make your own decisions on if the humor in the scene is relatable to you; or not. Rather than relentlessly forcing laughs down your throat like some of the stuff I have seen him in, most of which I still enjoyed, but in a different way.
To the same extent Steve Carrell surprised me, Keira Knightley did not; unfortunately in this case it was one film too many I have seen her play an overly British character to play up to the predominantly US market this film was probably intended for. However in an attempt to try and maintain my deliberately positive review of this above average film, I do think she is a talented actress and did what she was cast for pretty well, and my annoyance at her is probably just due to me being a grump; and nothing to do with her performance.
The two together create a weirdly captivating duo, who take you on an event packed journey through notions of human behavior, interaction and ultimately values. I will have to use the word again which is lazy but “captivating” is probably the best word I can think of to describe why I would recommend you watch this movie. Not captivating in the same way that a Hollywood special effects powerhouse is so good you can’t rip your eyes away from the screen, and thus repeatedly drop popcorn on your lovely top for fear of missing a single second. A more gentle kind of captivating if you will, where all through the movie just when you think you have the dynamic worked out and are just beginning to suspect monotonous predictability; it does not.
The Verdict:
This picture is without a doubt worth a watch. It is not winning any awards, but is a surprisingly good find that I fear many will not give the time of day.
Certificate: 15
Director: Lorene Scafaria
Starring: Steve Carell, Keira Knightley
Running Time: 101 Mins
Release Date: 13 July 2012
2 Comments
This is a sick review 🙂
Thank You Callum