Taglines: The end is coming soon.
With all possible human intervention exhausted, the Earth will imminently be obliterated by a meteorite. As such, most people are putting known laws, rules and conventions aside as they plan for what they really want for the end of their life. Among those making such a decision is Linda Petersen, who leaves her insurance salesman husband Dodge Petersen without a word three weeks before doomsday.
Now all alone in the world as his mother passed and his father abandoned the family when he was a child, Dodge does not want to find someone new and strike a relationship with her all in three weeks just to have someone with who to die, despite he marrying Linda so that he would not be all alone in the world. But he does begin to think about Olivia Covello, his high school sweetheart and who he now believes was and should be the love of his life.
In these final weeks, Dodge meets his younger Brit downstairs neighbor Penny Lockhart, a hyper-insomniac once she does fall asleep and a vinyl audiophile. Penny is also somewhat alone now that she has broken up with her live-in boyfriend Owen and as her family is back in England. Out of circumstances, Dodge and Penny decide to help each other with their somewhat competing end of the world goals.
First, Dodge, who has recently found out that Olivia feels the same about him, wants to find her, with only scant leads on her location. And second, Penny wants to be with her family in England, Dodge who knows a pilot with a plane that may be able to get her there. As they go on their road trip, they have to improvise as they hit one figurative roadblock after another, and deal with what end up being emerging new priorities.
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is a 2012 American romantic comedy-drama film, written and directed by Lorene Scafaria, in her directorial debut. The film stars Steve Carell and Keira Knightley. The inspiration for the title was a line from Chris Cornell’s song “Preaching the End of the World”, from his 1999 debut solo album Euphoria Morning.
Filming began May 2011, in Los Angeles, California. The film was theatrically released on June 22, 2012 in the United States by Focus Features. It received mixed reviews from critics and earned $9.6 million on a $10 million budget. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc and made available for digital streaming in the United States on October 23, 2012.
Film Review for Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
If he were told the world were ending tomorrow, Martin Luther once said, he would plant a tree. Werner Herzog would start a film. In “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World,” Steve Carell plays an insurance salesman but finds little point in selling a whole-life policy. An asteroid 70 miles wide is on a collision path with Earth, and governments have announced it will slam into its target in three weeks’ time.
To me, even worse than this catastrophe would be foreknowledge of it. To die is one thing. How much worse to know that all the life that ever existed on this planet, and all it ever achieved, was to be obliterated? Dodge (Carell) looks a little gloomy at the best of times. Now life is really piling on. A space-shuttle mission to destroy the asteroid has failed, and to make things worse, Dodge’s wife has walked out on him and joined the man she really loves.
The end of the world is hardly a rare subject for movies; recently we’ve had “Melancholia” and “Another Earth,” and who could forget Don McKellar’s bittersweet “Last Night” (1998)? Lorene Scafaria, the writer-director of this film, approaches the subject as an opportunity for melancholy satire and some gentle romance. It amounts to sort of a romanic comedy, although it makes no promises of providing a happy ending.
Some people riot in the streets. There are looters, determined to have a new big-screen TV, no matter how few days are left to watch it. There are orgies and mass baptisms. Cable news inevitably attaches a catchphrase and some theme music to the apocalypse. Radio stations have countdowns. Dodge, alone and lonely in his apartment, unexpectedly finds himself caring for a dog. That’s when I realized what I would do if I knew the world was ending. I would find a homeless mother dog with puppies and be calmed by her optimism.
Dodge meets Penny (Keira Knightley), a woman who lives in the next building. They begin to talk and become kindred spirits. She talks him into a road trip that would bring together two of their desires. He can look for the girl he’s always thought he should have married, and she can seek her family.
The destination of this trip isn’t really the point. Road trips are about who you meet along the way. They meet a man (William Petersen) who has hired a contract killer to shoot him and a survivalist (Derek Luke) who unreasonably believes all of his preparations will help him, and they come across a chain restaurant named Chipper’s. The shtick at this place is that the staff are all your best friends. The approaching Armageddon has cranked this routine into high gear, and everybody in the place is so desperately friendly, it borders on madness.
How do you end a movie like this? I mean, before the inevitable end, which logically must be a blank screen? How does Scafaria as a filmmaker create a third act? She produces a couple of unexpected characters who inspire some moments of truth, and there is a Hemingwayesque flight in a small aircraft that is supposed, I guess, to indicate that we face the worst with stoic endurance. These scenes are good enough in themselves, but aren’t really adequate to bring a sense of closure.
The best parts of this sweet film involve the middle stretches, when time, however limited, reaches ahead, and the characters do what they can to prevail in the face of calamity. How can I complain that they don’t entirely succeed? Isn’t the dilemma of the plot the essential dilemma of life?
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)
Directed by: Lorene Scafaria
Starring: Steve Carell, Keira Knightley, Melanie Lynskey, Roger Aaron Brown, Connie Britton, Nancy Carell, Trisha Gorman, Tonita Castro, Leslie Murphy, Kasey Campbell, Vince Grant
Screenplay by: Lorene Scafaria
Production Design by: Chris L. Spellman
Cinematography by: Tim Orr
Film Editing by: Zene Baker
Costume Design by: Kristin M. Burke
Set Decoration by: Kathy Lucas
Music by: Jonathan Sadoff, Rob Simonsen
MPAA Rating: R for language including sexual references, some drug use and brief violence.
Distributed by: Focus Features
Release Date: June 22, 2012
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