It Ends

Currently running on the festival circuit, this film by Writer/Director Alex Ullom deserves to be picked up for wider distribution.

Four friends go for a ride in a Jeep, and find themselves traveling on a road in the dark, with no visible exits. As time ticks by, they examine their lives and test their bonds with each other, trying to determine why they have been trapped there, and what the road may represent.

The Kubler-Ross stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, are represented through strong character development as they ride through the endless forest, without the need for food, water.or gas, while forces outside the car threaten their existence.

Ullom developed the story pre-covid, so the isolation brought by covid to the world had little to do with his uniquely original concept.

FLORIDA FILM FESTIVAL 2025

Every once in a while, the festival scene delivers on its promise, spotlighting a fresh voice in indie film who brings something genuinely original to the table. In 2023 it was Talk To Me. This year we have a clear winner... With It Ends, Alexander Ullom steps up as that filmmaker. His directorial debut is a sharp, low-key surprise that plays with expectations in all the best ways. A true indie gem that quietly impresses. The entire cast and Alexander Ullom have quite a career ahead of them.

The Q&A after the film ended was even more fascinating! Check out our YouTube later this week and we will have it posted.

There are questions beating at the heart of It Ends, which extend into the totality of the crew's vision. As Deleuze and Guattari note in their landmark book Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, our bodies without organs are desiring machines that reproduce the wants and needs intrinsic to our systems. So it is within those context that we question, what is it exactly we want?

Do we want another burger? Will boogie get the sip?

The movie is less interested in the answers to these questions as the articulation of the feeling these postulates create. This is a creative struggle that has been featured in earlier films, most notably "David" but it's explored here in a way that adds a lot to the corpus of work it comes from, while also charting a path towards new undiscovered possibilities.

A more risk-averse filmmaker would have made a less creative film, but that's not what happened here. Great cinema.