Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

LITTLE ROCK — Seeking a Friend for the End of the World 84

Cast:

Keira Knightley, Steve Carell, Melanie Lynskey, Adam Brody, Gillian Jacobs, Connie Britton, Patton Oswalt, T.J. Miller, Melinda Dillon, William Petersen, Rob Corddry

Director:

Lorene Scafaria

Rating:

R, for language including sexual references, some drug use and brief violence

Running time:

101 minutes

Writer-director Lorene Scafaria certainly has guts.

As the title, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, indicates, it does indeed involve the destruction of the globe as we know it, and Scafaria doesn’t shy away from abyss. The whole movie is based on the premise that the end is not only near, but now. Unlike Armageddon or Deep Impact, there aren’t any implausible world-saving solutions that will prevent us from ending up like dinosaurs.

Because Steve Carell, the for-mer boss of The Office, is the star, it’s safe to assume Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is sort of a comedy, but Scafaria’s wit works far differently from Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, which she adapted from the novel.

Most of the humor is lowkey and comes from an eerie sense of resignation. When Dodge (Carell) and his wife hear that a shuttle mission has failed to stop an asteroid heading for Earth, she dashes out of the vehicle never to be seen again.

His life, and pretty much everyone else’s, is only going to get worse. Knowing that the planet is going to wind up uninhabitable in less than a month makes going through a typical day at work seem even less exciting. It’s hard to sell insurance if nobody is going to be around in a matter of days.

Several of Dodge’s friends are content to party like it’s 1999. Under the circumstances, what cop is going to bust you if you want to shoot smack or share a martini with a 12-year-old?

Still sore from his wife’s abandonment, Dodge finds that carnal delights aren’t terribly comforting. He does take some solace in the company of British neighbor Penny (Keira Knightley), who is on the outs with her boyfriend (Adam Brody). When Penny discovers a letter from Dodge’s high school crush, the pair set out in search of Dodge’s one-time beloved. In the meantime, Dodge knows someone who owns a plane so that Penny can get a ride to England in order to spend her final days with her family.

Naturally, both goals become increasingly difficult as the limited time passes. Dodge and Penny also become closer despite their age gap and differing backgrounds. He’s an unapologetic square, and she’s a passionate vinyl record enthusiast. Even when the world’s ending, there’sno point in listening to tinny digital music files.

It’s hard to wonder if these sorts of debates will happen once our planet meets its demise, but Scafaria is thankfully aiming for more than cheap, awkward laughs based in despair. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World as a whole doesn’t fit easily into any genre.

That’s a strength and a potential weakness. Scafaria has the courage to imagine what might happen if despair was the only logical conclusion you could reach. Doing so frees her from coming up with a dubiously happy ending, but, like the characters, we wonder how much meaning there can be in a world about to vanish.

There are jarring changes in mood, which may be as appropriate as they are unsettling. It’s difficult to reach a firm conclusion on whether living in a world where there’s no hope for survival is indeed living.

Scafaria has little footage of apocalyptic destruction and is more intent on exploring the emotional connections disasters can bring. It’s too bad things sometimes have to go boom for that to happen.