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Friday, April 24, 2015

(Spoilers) Seeking a Friend for the End of the World Review

***SPOILER WARNING: Spoilers may be found in the post below about VARIOUS ITEMS. And I'm going to add in a bit of filler text here to limit how much of the main article gets shown in a preview. That should take care of most of it. Hopefully. And away we go. SPOILER WARNING. ***

Wow, that's a long title.

Overview
Asteroid's about to hit earth and the movie's not about stopping it. This is about how Dodge (Steve Carell) deals with, as far as he and everyone else knows, the end of the world. Rom-com with some road trip mixed in. Penny (Keira Knightley) is Dodge's neighbor.

Good or Bad?
I watched Seeking a Friend for the End of the World because Steve Carell and Keira Knightley were in it. Romantic-comedy seemed to be a pretty good fit for the story. There were laughs to be had and a lightheartedness throughout, but it had a semi-serious tone throughout. The movie didn't seem to take itself too seriously, and I really felt a positive vibe running throughout. After seeing a few too many end of the world type movies with much more serious tones, this was a really nice break. Also, the perspective from the regular Joe was really new to me. The movie seemed to explore this angle by throwing in a large variety of reactions from people (e.g. depression, riots, live normally).

On the acting front, the chemistry between Steve Carell and Keira Knightley felt very good. She did not have an American accent and her being British was an essential part of the story. I found that their relationship worked and the two felt right with each other. The development of their relationship from meeting to road trip to ending seemed well paced. Both actors did a convincing job in their roles as far as I was concerned.

What really bugged me was the ending. I mean, I should have seen it coming, but I had my fingers crossed. The movie ended with the screen fading to white. This kind of left it open so maybe the asteroid burned up in the atmosphere or something else?. However, one of the interpretations could have been the asteroid hitting the earth, which wasn't good for me. I wanted a sudden, last minute savior and for the world to be saved somehow. How could it all end when Dodge and Penny just got together? And all the stuff they did together, the relationship they built? Just snuffed out? Now I can't watch this movie again because I hate depressing endings.

The road trip was my favorite sequence of scenes. The whole, long tour had some great photography and interesting sequences. All of the people they met along the way, the building of their relationship, and their final destination. It was a beautiful movie. I just wished it ended on a happier note.

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