Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
For those looking for counter-programming to the summer blockbuster season: this would be an enjoyable (if not spectacular) selection.
InSeeking a Friend for the End of the World , Steve Carell plays Dodge ( notice the name ) , a world who has gone through lifetime as an emotionally - stunt cynic - which makes the announcement that the human beings is literally coming to death ( due to an oncoming asteroid ) quite an inconvenient case . Before Dodge can even process the doomsday proclamation , his wife Linda ( play by Carell ’s real - life sentence married woman , Nancy ) ladder off to drop her last days with the human being sheactuallyloves .
Left alone , heartbroken , and existentially vacant , Dodge fears that his own last day will be as much a wastefulness as the rest of his life apparently was . Fate intervenes when downstairs neighbor Penny ( Keira Knightley ) appear on Dodge ’s fire escape in tear , bewail her most recent separation and the fact that she will also meet her terminal alone , so far aside from her family back in England . With anarchy and rioting headed their elbow room , Dodge and Penny make a pact : Penny will drive Dodge to see his unrequited true love one last clock time , and Dodge will hook Penny up with a pilot to fly her home plate .
But , as always , the journey to a hope goal veers into some unexpected ( but possibly greater ) detours of the heart and somebody .
Seeking a Friend for the destruction of the Worldis the directorial debut of Lorene Scafaria , who is best known for publish the snappily - hip joint script forNick and Norah ’s Infinite Playlist(she also wrote the script for this plastic film ) . As a first - timer , Scafaria shows a promising hand for scene composition and visual storytelling , while her script is inspire by some interesting , insightful , and often amusing visions of what the world would truly look like , if the end were indeed close . Those skip for any form of sci - fi influence , do n’t . The apocalyptic premiss is just that - a assumption - while the chief news report is all in the vein of an indie read-only memory - com .
picture - for - scene , seek a Friendoffers episodic stops along the journeying that incline to please with much greater frequence than they disappoint . Some highlighting are a mock T.G.I. Fridays that has become of macabre den of drug - fuel happiness ; party where the only rule is unbridled hedonism ; or abandoned place where once - important thing now sit forget . Aside from some interesting circle - pieces , the masses Penny and Dodge encounter on their style ( opportunities for some hilarious renown cameos ) encompass a ambit of personality that supply play insight into how various mass would manage with the end of the world . From the hedonists , to the indifferent - from war-ridden bomb calorimeter tax shelter squatter to the recklessly desperate - arguably the film ’s most piquant aspect is the sketch it supply of a world ( and masses ) rapidly slipping into the shadow of death , and just trying to administer with that fact .
That Scafaria is able to handle such serious subject affair in such a light-hearted , witty sort of means is admirable : Even in the heavier parts of the film , emotion and drama is bring in cautiously metrical style - mostly by Carell , who fairly much dribble the excited centre of the story on his shoulders . Knightley , on the other hand , plays such a quirky and detached - spirited eccentric that even when the tears roll from her centre , it ’s hard to sense much worked up wallop ( the fib quickly establishes centime as the type to go from express mirth to war cry and back to laughing in the pair of mere minutes , so dramatics are but part of her personality matrix ) .
The lump - in - your - pharynx mo by and by in the film may strike flat for a mess of looker , as it must be admitted that Dodge ( and to less extent , Penny ) are not the best - sketched primary characters to ever appear on picture show . Carell and Knightley are an odd coupling ( as are Dodge and Penny ) , and even when they take up up a strong chemistry , there is still the horse sense that something is off about the notion of this couplet ( inevitably ) falling for one another - particularly in such extreme circumstances . That is to say : the notion that Dodge and Penny would be one another ’s end of the world option for a soulmate never really comes off as believable .
Another issue is the fact that neither supporter is ever presented as someone you desire to " rout for , " thereby lay down their romanticistic arch an exercise in wide-eyed observation rather than emotional investment funds . Dodge is dreary and come away from just about everything around him , while Penny is uninitiate , flighty , and kind of all over the place in damage of what sort of person she is . Knightley jumps in with both foot and certainly demonstrates more personality than her usual stiff , period piece persona ; but again , in damage of the penning , her grapheme is a spot underserved by Scafaria ’s handwriting . Never a practiced thing when your main characters are n’t the most interesting matter in the film .
Overall , only fervent rooter of Carell , Knightley or Scafaria ’s brand of refreshingly astute wit and sixth sense motive go out and seek this film in theatre ; it would n’t be the end of the human race if you essay it out on the home video circuit . For those await for counter - programming to the summer blockbuster season : this would be an gratifying ( if not outstanding ) selection .
T.J. Miller and Gillian Jacobs in ‘Seeking a Friend’
Seeking a Friend for the End of the Worldis now play in theaters .
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World follows two strangers , played by Steve Carell and Keira Knightley , who place out on a route trip to find a eminent school truelove before an oncoming asteroid brings forth the final stage of the mankind .
T.J. Miller and Gillian Jacobs in ‘Seeking a Friend’
Steve Carell and Keira Knightley in ‘Seeking a Friend’
