![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
All right, first things first. There is no way I'm going to refer to this movie by it's unweildy full name. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, hereafter referred to as SFEW, is a downer movie masquerading as a love story. The premise is that a 70-mile wide asteroid is barreling toward Earth. The space shuttle sent up to blow it apart failed. The world has three weeks left and then it's over.
Steve Carell plays Dodge, an emotionally disconected insurance salesman. Keira Knightly plays Penny, his free-wheeling neighbor. They meet and zany hijinks attempt to ensue, but they never quite happen.
I can't go into a whole lot of detail re the plot of this movie, because, honestly, there isn't much of one. Carell and Knightly lurch through this story from one pre-apocalyptic encounter to another.
At the end, you expect the writer/directors to pull a rabbit out of the hat, but that doesn't happen. The movie ends just as the asteroid is smashing into the Earth. Cut to black, roll end credits. No rabbit from the hat, no cliched Hollywood happy ending. Everybody dies. The end.
I didn't care for this movie. The relationship between Carell and Knightly's characters seems forced, even given the circumstances. Also, the world is ending in 3 weeks and the electricity stays on until the very last day? There are reports, in continuity, of riots breaking out and one scene of people smashing the hell out of cars for no real reason.
Walking out of the theater, I was left with a sense that I'd just seen Cormac McCarthy's The Road, filtered through Jodi Picoult's eyes. That isn't a compliment, to this movie or to Mr. McCarthy or Ms. Picoult.
Overall, I'd give SFEW a 2 out of 10 on the Melworks Scale of Movie Love. If you want to see this movie, wait for it to come out on cable. Don't pay anything extra for it, because it is really not worth it.
Steve Carell plays Dodge, an emotionally disconected insurance salesman. Keira Knightly plays Penny, his free-wheeling neighbor. They meet and zany hijinks attempt to ensue, but they never quite happen.
I can't go into a whole lot of detail re the plot of this movie, because, honestly, there isn't much of one. Carell and Knightly lurch through this story from one pre-apocalyptic encounter to another.
At the end, you expect the writer/directors to pull a rabbit out of the hat, but that doesn't happen. The movie ends just as the asteroid is smashing into the Earth. Cut to black, roll end credits. No rabbit from the hat, no cliched Hollywood happy ending. Everybody dies. The end.
I didn't care for this movie. The relationship between Carell and Knightly's characters seems forced, even given the circumstances. Also, the world is ending in 3 weeks and the electricity stays on until the very last day? There are reports, in continuity, of riots breaking out and one scene of people smashing the hell out of cars for no real reason.
Walking out of the theater, I was left with a sense that I'd just seen Cormac McCarthy's The Road, filtered through Jodi Picoult's eyes. That isn't a compliment, to this movie or to Mr. McCarthy or Ms. Picoult.
Overall, I'd give SFEW a 2 out of 10 on the Melworks Scale of Movie Love. If you want to see this movie, wait for it to come out on cable. Don't pay anything extra for it, because it is really not worth it.
