Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
Premise - A meteor is set to crash into Earth in a few weeks time, leaving Earth's entire population a limited amount of time to accomplish anything they'd like to do before they die. Dodge, an insurance representative with nothing in the world left to ensure, has no idea what to do with the remainder of his loser of a life, until he meets his neighbor Penny.
Review - Okay, maybe the title of the film should have given it away, but I had no idea what to expect with the plot of this film? I really didn't know how apocalyptic it was, nor how much it was going to make me cry with existential emotion. I sat down thinking I'd be watching a comedy.
The film was of course a comedy, in a very black way that can make massive suicides and rioting and the whole end of the world funny. What I was so impressed by, though, was how much the film confronted the full range of human emotions associated with the end of the world. It's so absurd, it can be kind of funny. But it is also heartbreakingly tragic and also frustrating in its injustice.
There was also a full range of human responses to news such as this. I felt particularly related to this film watching it during the pandemic, in which we saw a similarly absurdist range of collective human responses such as the uptake in bread-baking, to people drinking Lysol. In this world, we have people hiring hitmen to kill them, we have people killing themselves because what's the point in waiting a few weeks, we have people doing the absolute most deviant things because they can't get in trouble for them, like hard drugs, orgies, and telling their families how much they hate them, you have people rioting in the streets and causing arson... imagine a world with no consequences and this is the society you get, and it feels absurdly accurate. And terrifying.
The two main characters, Dodge and Penny, set off to accomplish their one last goal in life - Penny, to find a working plane and visit her parents again in England, and Dodge, to find his long-lost high school sweetheart. By the end of the story, of course, spoiler is that they learned that the best way to spend the end of the Earth is with each other.
This message did not have to be romantic, per say, and it would have been just as impactful. Part of me had hopes that it wouldn't be romantic, given the word "friend" in the title. A romantic story would be great, but the dynamic between Dodge and Penny was just so great as a comforting friendship. I think Hollywood has an obsession with heterosexual romance, that putting these two characters together even with their major age and attractiveness differences was the default. I mean, I love Steve Carrell, but he's no match to Kiera Knightley. I found myself a bit annoyed at the romantic piece.
The relationship between the two characters, generally speaking, was beautiful. The moment where Penny hears her parents' voices on the phone had me crying, and the moment where Penny and Dodge are holding each other while the world blows up had me absolute sobbing. I kept holding out hope until the very last second that maybe, somehow, this was all a misunderstanding and the world goes on. But no - even if no meteor comes to take us all out at once - life will end. My life will end, and being confronted with that filled me with existential terror and the absolute desire to hold on to the people I love the most, because that is ultimately what we should be living our lives for.
Selfishness for my own life aside, the film also brought me an intense gratitude for everything on earth. When the planes stopped flying, and the TV stations stopped running... thinking about everything we have built over thousands of years being torn apart... was too much for me to handle emotionally, especially getting a taste of how society can fall apart during the pandemic. With the threat of losing it all, I became a lot more thankful for everything life has to offer. (94/100)
Quote - "There's a reason that opposites are supposed to attract. I'm the result of two romantics getting together. I'm totally screwed."
What to watch for - There's a dog named Sorry that's pretty cute. The name is just hilarious and kinda just sums up the comedy of the whole movie - "Life sucks, sorry you gotta deal with this." But it's also such an amazing character to have in the film because Sorry has absolutely no knowledge that the world is about to end, and his ignorance as a animal is pure bliss.
If you liked this film, I'd recommend About Time!
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