When I first saw the trailer for Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, I was bemused. A comedy about an impending apocalypse? Sounds wildly improbable. But that intriguing concept is precisely what led me to watch the movie last night. It's an interesting exercise in story-telling and I quite enjoyed it, but I recommend it with certain caveats.
To begin with, the lead actors are Steve Carell and Keira Knightley. This posed a problem for many of my friends who simply could not fathom these actors as a couple. But the great thing about this movie is that it takes place in such odd circumstances that Carell and Knightley getting together is not so bizarre. Planet Earth is about to be decimated by an asteroid - who cares if Michael Scott and Elizabeth Bennet become an item? At any rate, the two have great chemistry and after my initial disbelief wore off, I was ready to root for them. Carell plays Dodge, an insurance salesman whose wife leaves him the minute she hears about the asteroid. Knightley plays Penny, who comes into Dodge's life when he finds her crying on the fire escape. She has missed the last flight to England and won't be reunited with her family before the world ends. Carell invites her in; she accepts after making the following bargain: "I promise I won't steal anything if you won't rape me." And therein begins their unlikely friendship.
What follows is a road trip. Dodge decides to find his high school sweetheart who was "the one that got away," and Penny comes along because Dodge says he knows a man with a plane who could fly her back to England. Along the way they interact with various oddballs who are dealing with Armageddon in very different ways - there's the conscientious cop who insists on issuing speeding tickets, even though they're all going to be dead in a week's time. There's the roadside restaurant filled with overly friendly employees and diners who are constantly having orgies. There's Penny's ex-boyfriend who has built a shelter and is convinced he will survive any disaster. At the beginning of the film, Dodge's friends throw a dinner party which quickly devolves into a hedonistic festival where everyone's shooting up heroin and making children do shots, because what else can you do? All these events make the movie feel like an extended sketch comedy, and there are plenty of delightful cameos from people like Rob Corddry, Gillian Jacobs, Patton Oswalt, and Connie Britton. Carell plays the straightman throughout, letting everyone else have the punchline, but he is a wonderfully calming presence in the midst of all this chaos.
It is hard to describe the tone of Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. It has some hilarious one-liners and paints a darkly comic picture of the world on the brink of destruction. However, the movie's true depth comes from Dodge and Penny's burgeoning romance. For all intents and purposes, the two of them are alone in the world. Terrible circumstances have thrown them together, but this just makes their love story all the more poignant. Carell and Knightley offer surprisingly moving performances and demonstrate that as long as you're with the right person, the end of the world doesn't have to be that bad.
To begin with, the lead actors are Steve Carell and Keira Knightley. This posed a problem for many of my friends who simply could not fathom these actors as a couple. But the great thing about this movie is that it takes place in such odd circumstances that Carell and Knightley getting together is not so bizarre. Planet Earth is about to be decimated by an asteroid - who cares if Michael Scott and Elizabeth Bennet become an item? At any rate, the two have great chemistry and after my initial disbelief wore off, I was ready to root for them. Carell plays Dodge, an insurance salesman whose wife leaves him the minute she hears about the asteroid. Knightley plays Penny, who comes into Dodge's life when he finds her crying on the fire escape. She has missed the last flight to England and won't be reunited with her family before the world ends. Carell invites her in; she accepts after making the following bargain: "I promise I won't steal anything if you won't rape me." And therein begins their unlikely friendship.
What follows is a road trip. Dodge decides to find his high school sweetheart who was "the one that got away," and Penny comes along because Dodge says he knows a man with a plane who could fly her back to England. Along the way they interact with various oddballs who are dealing with Armageddon in very different ways - there's the conscientious cop who insists on issuing speeding tickets, even though they're all going to be dead in a week's time. There's the roadside restaurant filled with overly friendly employees and diners who are constantly having orgies. There's Penny's ex-boyfriend who has built a shelter and is convinced he will survive any disaster. At the beginning of the film, Dodge's friends throw a dinner party which quickly devolves into a hedonistic festival where everyone's shooting up heroin and making children do shots, because what else can you do? All these events make the movie feel like an extended sketch comedy, and there are plenty of delightful cameos from people like Rob Corddry, Gillian Jacobs, Patton Oswalt, and Connie Britton. Carell plays the straightman throughout, letting everyone else have the punchline, but he is a wonderfully calming presence in the midst of all this chaos.
It is hard to describe the tone of Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. It has some hilarious one-liners and paints a darkly comic picture of the world on the brink of destruction. However, the movie's true depth comes from Dodge and Penny's burgeoning romance. For all intents and purposes, the two of them are alone in the world. Terrible circumstances have thrown them together, but this just makes their love story all the more poignant. Carell and Knightley offer surprisingly moving performances and demonstrate that as long as you're with the right person, the end of the world doesn't have to be that bad.
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