Le dernier refuge

There's a bunch of end of the world series out there and my assumption is that this one tried to make a cut to be one of them but din't quite pull it off and thus is now shown as a full feature. Plot is feasible but all characters are paper thin - as they would be when you prepare for seasons work. Fair . Almost decent. Characters follow eerily the bad series line up. Same good guy bad guy settings... Maybe if they had some edge on "this pilot", if could had become series. Now acting presumptuous, slow, almost clumsy. It is what you would expect if you were watching the TV-series. When you expect a movie you want a movie. With the movie ending and not just filling...

'Goodbye world' the story of our modern world coming to an end. A text message, terrorism, the civilized world in the U.S.A crumbles as a group of college friends unite at the safe and secluded home of James (Adrian Grenier) and Lily (Kerry Bishé).

This is a story about human nature; what types of people we decide to be. Should we be activists, politicians...or maybe all it takes to make this world a better place is if we all try to be better people.

When a strange text message sets off the collapse of the country, James and Lily are expecting Nick (Ben McKenzie) and his wife Becky (Caroline Dhavernas) to visit. Soon enough, the house fills up with old friends.

As the film plays out, the past and emotions of these characters, old friends spill out in the shadow of a broken world.

The plot summary of this film on IMDb actually does it justice. Written by Denis Hennelly (director) and Sarah Adina Smith, it comes off as a thoughtful movie; it is pleasant to watch something that actually has a point and message.

This film made me think quite a bit, and that should be the point of art, to make a person question the world and perhaps even their stone beliefs. Is a little disaster all it will take for people to turn into animals--are people worse than animals?

Now, my instinct is to go into a long critical analysis of the characters representing idealistic stances: how each character echoes a way to live life; but this isn't the time for that junk.

Adrian Grenier, I felt made this movie. I never watched 'Entourage' and was surprised at his acting ability. He never seemed too fake, is another way of putting it. Of course, Gabby Hoffmann (uncle buck ref), is in this movie too, which is the reason I decided to watch it.

It was well directed...but I did feel like the movie sort of stretched believability at points. I wasn't too bothered, but for 1 part that I felt was not needed at all. No Spoilers. It was a relaxing and interesting movie, actually about something.

I was really excited about this concept, and naively went into it with high hopes. But with this kind of theme, everything hinges on whether the cast and crew create an aura of fear and doom. There wasn't anything even close to that. So I consider this film a failure.

Having said that, like many movies, it had redeeming qualities that kept me in the game 'til the end. I love the idea of high tech yuppies going native in Mendocino. They use their millions made from being movers and shakers in the mainstream world, to then retreat from that same world.

Interestingly, I didn't hear any angry manifestos from our husband and wife protagonists/property owners. While narrating, the man explains that he went to his property because he sensed an apocalypse would come eventually. He didn't say that he hated the world per say, and they weren't living like real hippies. They had a nice home with modern conveniences.

Yeah sure, it rips off The Big Chill, but I forgive them for that. It's what you do with it that matters. I didn't quite understand the politics of the property owners, their former male business partner, or the Gaby Hoffman character. I think some of them were hybrid. We were supposed to see them as Libs., but they were business people and loving parents.

What the film did convey effectively, is that friendship is messy. We don't necessarily give it up just because our friends betray us from time to time. When we make real friends, we become an intimate part of the other person's life. This is so even between exes. If you had a reasonably amicable split, you are still a major part of someone else's life story, and often you can't just disentangle from that.

Some of our characters did learn things about themselves, which is always good in a character-driven relationship picture. Some might say that there were no noble souls in this film, but I think Adrian Grenier's character came close. He didn't cheat on anyone, he tried to do the right thing, and he tried to quarterback the scenario.

***I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the allegorical nature of the "Daily Bubble." Some of the characters lived in a bubble of intellectualism, idealism,and narcissism to a degree. But how long can you do that without something bursting your bubble? Well, each day they would launch a new bubble and see how long it would last. Not even the end of the world was going to prevent them from trying to perpetuate the bubble.

"Goodbye World" is not an apocalyptic film as one thinks of one. The plot does not center on the destruction of infrastructure, landscapes of desolation, or immediate violence as new groups try to fill the power vacuum. "Goodbye World" is a glimpse of the quick dissolution into the state of nature that occurs in human relationships when society collapses. Common to all works of literature and film that deal with the subject of societal breakdown, established conflicts emerge. These include: the desire to hold onto familiar societal values; the relevance of property ownership without governing bodies; at what point does cooperation impede on the individual's ability to survive; and the possible irrelevance of social contracts (marriage)without government. The film subtly captures the characters not just as victims of impending doom but friends and lovers with established and complicated relationships. These established tensions within the relationships serve as a medium to convey the philosophical quandaries that are inherent in the age old political question: What is man in the state of nature? It should not be expected that the rich characters would set aside relational conflicts as the world ends. Such disaster only exacerbates the problems within their relationships. But the aggravation of old wounds and amplification of competing attitudes just makes the ending all the more sweet. Each character must say "Goodbye World" to their old prejudices and paradigms to walk brightly into the future without "the world as we know it."

This has an interesting premise and could have been a good movie. Instead, the writers decided to make it an uptight, hipster, yuppie, thirty-something comedy-drama, complete with snooty attitudes, multiple annoying subplots and a man bun. I just couldn't get invested in their predictable, soap opera turmoil. The end of the world scenario takes up about ten minutes of time. The story line and attempts at cuteness are trite and pretentious. It's more like an uncomfortable high school reunion than an apocalypse. When it finally tries to get interesting and actually incorporate armageddon into the story, it's too little too late and just dumb. At least they have weed.