SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLDWritten and Directed by Lorene Scafaria
Starring Steve Carrell, Keira Knightley and Martin Sheen
Penny: What is it about the end of the world that brings them all out of the woodworks?
SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD gives new meaning to the term, “Disaster Movie”. Within moments of the film’s opening, it is announced that the world is coming to its inevitable end. This piece of information would ordinarily be pretty crushing, given that one of the very few things we all share in common is that we live on this planet. But the world that first time feature filmmaker, Lorene Scafaria (writer of NICK & NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST), is not like any world I know at all. In fact, it is so unfamiliar that I ended up feeling nothing instead. A society that feels so false cannot possibly inspire any genuine emotion.
When the news hits that an asteroid will collide and destroy Earth, and that all attempts to avoid this fate have failed, Dodge (Steve Carrell) is sitting in a parked car with his wife (played by Carrell’s real life wife, Nancy). She opens her door, gets out of the car, and without even looking in her husband’s direction, she takes off as fast as she can through a park. Dodge does not follow. He is devastated but what is he to do? Clearly, all the rules have changed now that there are only weeks to live. This is not so clear to everyone though. As Dodge walks around in a stupor, albeit an understandable one, he is surrounded by people who still go to work, go to the gym and go to dinner parties where annoying friends try to set them up on dates. It all felt so unnatural to me that I often wanted to yell at the screen to remind them all that the world was in fact coming to an end and they didn’t have time for all this stupidity.
Carrell is a great actor, capable of balancing sadness and comedy quite well, as is evidenced in films like, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE and DAN IN REAL LIFE, and he does his best here to keep SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD alive long enough for anyone to care the apocalypse is still coming. Sadly, this disaster proves too big of a match for him. It certainly doesn’t help him any that he is paired opposite Keira Knightley, who, while lovely, is thoroughly mismatched opposite Carrell. Embarking on their road trip to help Dodge find his childhood sweetheart is uncomfortable and awkward to say the least. I would never in a million years choose to spend my final days on Earth with these two. It was hard enough to spend an hour and a half with them.
CRAZY STUPID LOVE is the second directorial effort from duo, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS), and even though two heads should be better than one, you would think no one was in charge from how aimless and tired this plot plays out. Their choices, whey they actually make some, are simple enough for any love struck idiot to understand. We know from the moment the film starts that the love is gone for Cal and Emily (Steve Carell and Julianne Moore) by what they're wearing on their feet. Everyone at the restaurant is playing footsie under the table with their fancy footwear except for these two. Cal is wearing running shoes so we know that he's given up trying. He also drinks from a straw and his wife does the driving so we know he's a sad man. At one point, they end up in an argument in a school parking lot, shortly after it looks like they might reconcile no less, and it begins to rain down heavily on Carell after Moore walks away from him dramatically. "What a cliche," he exclaims and I could not have agreed any more.
After Cal and Emily separate at the beginning of the film, Cal tries to get back out there. This is where he meets Jacob (Ryan Gosling), a smooth operator, who for some inexplicable reason, takes pity on Cal and decides to help him become a real man. Of course, becoming a man people can respect means buying into a world of materialism and detachment, two paths that certainly do not lead to love. As fantastic as it is to watch Gosling let loose for a change, it is clear from the start that ultimately it will be his womanizing ways that will need adjusting in order for him to find true happiness, especially if he intends to land the beautiful Hannah (Emma Stone). And as if there weren't enough tumultuous sub-plots intersecting already, screenwriter, Dan Fogelman (TANGLED), gives us a few more love conundrums to ponder involving a babysitter with an inappropriate crush, a 13-year-old lovesick boy and Kevin Bacon. The point is to distract and make us laugh but all it does is weight the whole project down with heavy awkwardness.
I will not pretend to know too much about love. It seems to me it comes in many different forms and we can only know what it does to us as individuals when we're in it. I can say that my experience has been that it is a transformative emotion well worth every pain that comes with it. It is tricky enough to navigate in the real world though and hard to take seriously in a world as contrived as the one created in CRAZY STUPID LOVE. While Ficarra and Requa attempt to convey how our modern society has made it even more difficult to find love and hold on to it once we have it, they still hold true to the archaic notion that we all have one perfect partner, a "soul mate" if you will, waiting out there for us to find. As far as love in the present day goes, that notion is about as stupid and crazy as they come.