Le dernier refuge

"This is not the apocalypse and even if it is didn't we all say this would be the perfect place to ride it out?" After a group of friends receive a text that just says goodbye world they are confused. After the very real threat of an apocalypse occurs old college friends show up at an "off-the-grid" home to wait it out. Little by little old feelings of love and jealousy start to creep in as they all brace for the end of the world. This is a tough movie to review and explain. Some parts of it are very funny and entertaining while others really slow the movie down. The mood switches from happy comedy to downer drama. Some of it is very predictable and some of it comes out of nowhere. I did like this movie for the most part but there was a movie that came out about a year ago called It's A Disaster which was about the same idea and I liked that one much better. Overall, an OK movie that struggled to find an identity. I give this a B-.

I had to give this movie a four out of ten stars. It was a good movie, well acting, but the plot and scenes didn't often make sense. The movie starts off right there when an apocalypse is happening. It's not really played out how the characters know each other, but they all end up at this one guys house to survive and out live the apocalypse. This move just has a lot of drama within the house of where they are staying, you start to forget that there's even an apocalypse going on. There is a text saying Goodbye World that is sent to millions of people. But this text doesn't really show anything about how the world is ending.. It's just a text message? It's as if the apocalypse isn't really happening in the movie, and these people are just having a get-together in this mans house. A lot of drama.

'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.

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...

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.