'The End' A Review

The End is a post-apocalyptic musical about the family of an oil tycoon that live in a bunker in a salt mine. After 20 years of isolation the group accepts a new comer into their group disrupting the status quo.

The ensemble is all incredibly talented and bring those considerable gifts to bear. It's always a joy to see Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon and they don't disappoint, the supporting cast Bronagh Gallagher, Tim McInnerny, and with less screentime Lennie James all really deliver. The 'kids' George MacKay and Moses Ingram are also adept. All of them, and its very much an ensemble piece, are able to navigate the bizarre stilted tone, the breaking into song, and the scenes of massive emotion with grace and an honesty that really work.

This is co-writer/director Joshua Oppenheimer's first feature and his first work in a decade(following 2014's doc The Look of Silence) and you can tell so much thought and effort went into this. It looks great, presumably mostly on sets with no CGI, it really evokes an actual place and feeling. The musical numbers, if too similar in melody and tempo, are effective, particularly a prolonged Michael Shannon dance sequence and a little tap dance interlude by McInnerny. Overall the production is rich and evocative and bodes well for Oppenheimer's future efforts in narrative film.

The film falls short in the third act and in its overall messaging. First of all it is too long, this glut of "serious" movies that have a 2 1/2 - 3 hour run time is absurd. Not that long runtimes are inherently bad but they have to have a purpose and the pacing needs to be amended accordingly. Here, like in many overlong movies, the film ends multiple times. The pacing drags and as a result interest is lost. There is no real need for it to be this long. The wonderful Shannon dance sequence referenced above very much feels like the end of the movie but then there's another anemic half an hour. 

And then there's the messaging, similar to many of these end-of-year overlong serious movies, the message seems to be 'life is bleak' and 'the world is fucked', which 1. is boring, 2. is not entertaining, and 3. no shit. Not that movies with a depressing message can't be compelling but it seems like the industry says only these type of movies are cinema(just look at critics top 10 lists or awards nominations that are just now starting to percolate) and that is simply not true particularly in a time where these same industry people are saying 'movies are struggling'. Art(in this instance cinema) is about hope, it is about transformation, it is about inspiration. And The End is actually kind of on that track for 2/3 of its story, the characters contend with their pasts, their regrets, their culpability, and there seems to be some growth as a result. The work itself seems to be indicating this is the trajectory, this small enclave of what's left of society finally starts to be honest and, finally, begins to make some progress. But then they don't and you can clearly see Oppenheimer's will here, he goes against what the work itself wants to do and forces his embittered nihilistic worldview, a character dies, the rest of the characters compartmentalize and regress and its just feels very contrived dramatically and unsatisfying thematically. The film ultimately falls echoingly flat.

Ambitious, intriguing, haunting, but sour and in the end empty.

Currently in theaters, coming soon to VOD.

Rent It.

'Wicked: Part I' A Review

Wicked: Part I is an adaptation of the 2003 stage production based on the 1995 prequel novel of the The Wizard of Oz novel/film. Elphaba(Cynthia Erivo) is an outcast with unpredictable magical powers, she attends Shiz University in order to cultivate them. There she is at first antagonized by Galinda(Ariana Grande-Butera) and her castmates but is eventually befriended by them.

Erivo is stupendous, dominating the screen any time she is on it, able to convey emotional truth in every scene as well as fit in to the more ostentatious numbers and sequences. Grande-Butera by comparison is absolutely outshone and overly relies on slapstick and comedic business in place of emotion or character. Splitting the focus between the two is a mistake and anytime the film cuts away from Erivo you are simply waiting for her to return. Plain and simple Grande-Butera's is miscast, out of her depth. She certainly has the voice for the role but she doesn't have the acting ability to round it out. This is particularly apparent when she briefly shares the screen with Kristin Chenoweth(the originator of the role). The supporting cast is mostly decent but it is so crammed, the film so bloated, it is difficult at times to track the action or follow the plot and other than Erivo there is no one to invest in.

Visually the film is glossy, overly CGI'd, there are some amazing renderings and a couple dance numbers on actual sets, but overall it conveys an un-reality that works against the emotional journey at its core. The dance numbers and songs are all great but there is not enough of them, in extending the source material into two 2.5 hour chunks it upends the effective pacing of the stage production and there are long stretches between numbers that seem to serve little to no purpose. The sound mix is also off, the dialogue track and the musical tracks are seemingly at the same level, so when a musical number does kick in it is too muted and lacks the kind of jolt of inspiration and hair raising the soundtrack usually elicits.

Unfortunately, despite an incredible Erivo, kinda boring.

Currently in theaters.

Stream It.