The End

With some sort of global apocalypse having occurred up top, a family have taken refuge deep inside a salt mine where dad's previous profession in the energy sector has ensured that they live a civilised and well appointed life. With Reubens and Rembrandt augmenting their oak-clad walls, Michael Shannon and Tilda Swinton have brought up their son, George MacKay, with the help of her best friend Bronagh Gallagher, a doctor (Lennie James) and their gay butler (Tim McInnerny). They spend their days rehearsing for disaster scenarios and rearranging their home, whilst the son writes a memoir for his father that marries an (environmental) history of the world with a curiously slanted homage to the efforts made by his father to provide unlimited cheap energy to the masses! Then one day, this Elysian dream becomes compromised by the arrival of a young girl (Moses Ingram) and that puts them into a quandary. Do they let her stay or do they evict her back from whence she came? If she stays, how might she upset the dynamic amongst a family who have clearly only a wafer thin sheen over a multitude of issues from their respective pasts that have largely been forgotten for then twenty-odd years they have lived their subterranean existences? There is singing, and a lot of singing - and with the possible exception of Ingram, none of them are very good at it. That doesn't matter, though, as the score from Marius de Vries and Josh Schmidt combines just about everything from Rachmaninov and Gershwin to Lloyd-Webber, Rice, Pasek & Pau. Once your ears get used to the sometimes grimace-inducing falsetto of an enthusiastic MacKay and an on-form but fairly tuneless Swinton then this actually works quite entertainingly. Gallagher can always be relied upon to add a little vitality to a story and McInnerny also knows how to ham things up (just as he did in "Gladiator II") to good effect, too. The timelines jump now and again, but never by much and it has quite a quirky effect on the delivery as characters appear to, well, disappear, at the end of the scene. MacKay steals this for me, delivering a role that reminded me a little of Luke Treadaway's Olivier award winning stage effort as "Christopher" from "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time". His journey to adulthood being tempered by a very slightly autistic characterisation; a dependant relationship with his mother and his own clearly awakening hormonal desires, too. It's long, and at times can be a bit hit or miss - but generally it does flow along well, in a very theatrically staged fashion and if you are looking to see something that takes just about everyone from their comfort zone, then this might be for you.

I don't think I had been equally excited for a film as I was nervous in a long time. Oppenheimer's feature debut was bound to be an uncompromising and singular vision, but I truly haven't seen anything like it. Clearly they have no idea how to market this film because neon is supposed to be releasing this limited in December and there's still no poster or trailer. I digress, but this film truly had me perked up throughout most of its runtime. Technically, this film has the sauce. Really interesting and detailed environment, cinematography and the use of lighting are also critical and work to contextualize scenes. The weak links are in the story and the music. While I don't think the golden age-style musical is necessary a gimmick, I don't think it's as fully realized or utilized as well as they'd hoped. I'd say for at least half the songs I was engaged but they all sound so similar. Aside from the moments where it feels like the visuals are meant to coincide with what's happening, it's just people walking around talk-singing how they feel. And it's a very thematically-loose film too, kind of has its eggs in too many baskets, without properly divulging into anything. When it's not scratching the surface of something profound, it can often feel trite. With all that being said, I really liked this movie. It's not for everyone and the dude next to me was so obviously bored, along with my girlfriend who said she'd probably never watch it again but liked it enough. You can't put it in a box and there's nothing like it which I think should merit a watch. While it's not looking to satisfy any lingering questions you might have, or any larger questions at that, it's begging something of you and asking, "are we too far gone, or guilty, to recover from our past?"

I only knew the premise of this film going in and felt perplexed as I exited the cinema. It took me a while to start processing what kind of story I have just been told. You can take many things from this. I will spare you any analysis but this film oddly lulled me into this hidden world with grey blue tones, anxious people, sumptuous decor and numerous paintings to, well, frame the story.

This was my second musical I have ever seen in the cinema and the first being Dancer In The Dark I think I have found pieces that accompany each other pretty well. I want to see this film again sometime and maybe do some rabbit hole research first so that I can spot the things I definitely missed first time.

Enjoy. It's a lovely film.

Post apocalyptic movies are probably my favorite genre, and I love Michael Shannon and Tilda Swinton, so I was really looking forward to this movie. I also like musicals, but I did have my doubts about whether the two genres could mix.

Maybe they can, but not this time, because as a musical, it's *absolutely terrible*. The songs are so generic and bland that you forget them the minute they end. Seriously, I watched this last night and can't remember a single song. Michael Shannon does have a surprisingly good singing voice, but Tilda Swinton sounds pretty much exactly like you would expect Tilda Swinton to sound, and that's not good.

Setting the music aside, it's a pretty mediocre story. It's about a family and a few others living an "idyllic" life underground after some sort of never specified apocalypse. Things get shaken up when a newcomer arrives, and then.... well, not much happens. Certainly not enough to fill two and a half hours.

I'm glad I watched it on Hulu rather than wasting money at the theater.

No pun intended - a great cast! No doubt about that - and they can act and play ... I really like them. You can have different opinions about their singing ability I reckon - we do have one (female) main character who seems to be above everyone else ... the others seem to be content with their voice ... not too bad, but I don't think one would tell them they can have a second career (or third? Or fourth and so forth ... again no pun intended).

I had no idea the movie would be a musical - not the biggest fan of the genre - still (and hopefully you are or were aware of this) the main story had quite the weight with it. Also the movie is way too long for its own good ... yes criticism, yes society and humanity ... but there is a point where you may just feel numb.

Which may very well be the point - so I reckon a bigger/higher score would be more apt ... still the movie is more likely to annoy you at times ... maybe even multiple times ... and I don't think you'll be sitting there thinking: very clever ... even though it has more than the fair share of moments where you could attest it to be clever ... it evens itself out with other moments ... and the length ... have I mentioned it is too long? All that said, it is in the eye of the beholder and I always love watching Michael Shannon doing his thing! One of the greatest to grace our screens (whichever size ... length that may be in the end) ...