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Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (15)
© Unknown - all rights reserved |
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| Tookey's Rating |
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2
/10 |
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| Average Rating |
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5.36
/10 |
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| Starring |
Steve Carell  , Keira Knightley , Adam Brody
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| Full Cast > |
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Directed by:
Lorene Scafaria
Written by:
Lorene Scafaria
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| Released: |
2012 |
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| Genre: |
DRAMA
ROMANCE
COMEDY
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| Origin: |
US |
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| Colour: |
C |
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| Length: |
100 |
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A near-death experience. |
Reviewed by Chris Tookey
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What’s the most unlikely romantic pairing you can think of in a movie? Kevin Spacey and Angelina Jolie? John Travolta and Megan Fox? Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes?
For my money, Steve Carell (pictured right) and Keira Knightley (pictured left) take a lot of beating, but that’s the bafflingly misconceived combo we’re invited to root for in this apocalyptic romcom by writer-director Lorene Scafaria, a lightweight, cheery, weirdly sentimental version of Lars Von Trier’s gloomfest Melancholia.
As in Melancholia, a gigantic asteroid is about to put an end to life as we know it, and humanity responds in different ways. The underclass takes to looting. The middle class experiments with uninhibited sex, alcohol and heroin. And then there’s insurance clerk Dodge (Steve Carell) whose wife (played by his real wife, Linda Carell) runs away, probably because she fears she’ll be bored to death by him long before the apocalypse.
Fortunately, dull dog Dodge has a lively neighbour (Knightley), one of those zany free spirits who’s meant to be entrancing but instead is annoying. You just know that her role is to be a liberating force who’s going to liven up his few remaining days. Remember Melanie Griffith seducing Jeff Daniels in Something Wild? Katharine Hepburn entrancing Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby? Kate Winslet bemusing Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?
This is meant to be the same process, but one crucial element is missing. There’s no chemistry. Knightley gives her most dreadful performance yet – mannered, irritating and striving to be adorable, like a manic pixie – and Carell just stares at her as though he can’t believe his bad luck and has mislaid his vitamin pills.
The age gap doesn’t help – he looks old enough to be her father – but a bigger problem is that the two people have nothing in common, except that they’re equally boring.
My sympathies were with Keira’s latest unemployed loser boyfriend (Adam Brody) who when looters start shooting decides to use her as a human shield.
Her ambition is to get back to her family in Surrey. Dodge’s is to hook up with his high school sweetheart and play badly on the harmonica he was given by his long-lost father (Martin Sheen). It’s hard to be bothered about whether they succeed or not, and you get the feeling there must be more dramatic storylines going on just offscreen. It’s hard to feel anything for them as a couple, and not enough happens to push them together for a group hug, let alone a meaningful relationship. The movie utterly lacks the charm and comic invention of Ms Scafaria’s previous movie, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.
It’s mopey and sad, qualities which make for a funereal romcom. For me, the end of the world couldn’t come fast enough.
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