Review - The End
Directed by: Joshua Oppenheimer
Written by: Joshua Oppenheimer, Rasmus Heisterberg
Starring: Tilda Swinton, George McKay, Moses Ingram, Michael Shannon
Running Time: 148 Minutes
Rating: 2/5
A tragic, melancholic lullaby for the end times, Joshua Oppenheimer’s foray into fictional narrative filmmaking is an ambitiously bold misfire of talent and thematic proportions.
A musical set in the confines of an underground bunker at the end of the world, The End is a chamber piece, echoing the sins of humanity, the guilt on our shoulders and our legacies that we leave behind. While the film boasts challenging themes and ideas concerning class and stature, intergenerational legacy and ecological ruin; The End feels overwrought in its length and subject matter that its density ultimately weighs down any long-lasting message to take away from the film.
After a humanitarian collapse on the surface of the world, a wealthy and privileged family takes shelter underground deep in the Earth for safety. Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon lead the family as the Mother and Father respectively, with George McKay as their only son. Shaped by the confines of their environment, the family lives their lives in routine - their only appropriate way to shape any sense of normalcy that they once had in their life above the surface. In the shadows of the salt mine in which they seek refuge, their life is turned upside down when a survivor from the surface, Girl, (Moses Ingram) enters their bunker.
With a new voice in the home, the family’s long standing beliefs (or lies) are ultimately challenged - the naivety of Son and his understanding of the world as taught by his parents begin to crumble - and an unravelling of the truths of the family’s very beginnings and role in the apocalypse come into light.
Image from The End, courtesy of Elevation Pictures.
The End is not without merit; as it stands, Oppenheimer has crafted a beautiful film in production design, cinematography and a magnet for true talent. Where the film loses its way is in its over-extensive run time, clocking in at over two and a half hours; a journey through such dense and heavy material, its payoff even across song and dance feels like a whimper than a finale. While the actors’ performances are one to behold and are the true star of the film, The End’s musical features are not as memorable as hoped; the songs and harmonies are fine, but they do not evoke a profound emotional attachment that (I would think) Oppenheimer was hoping to achieve. It feels like another way to explore exposition or emotional states for his characters - rather an a way to elevate or explicate such thematic ideology at a deeper level. These musical numbers often feel exactly that - performative, rather than that of a profound nature.
A family on the cusp of moral, ethical and existential crises - all isolated from the world at large; with tensions slowly building to a musical crescendo in the monochrome confines of a bunker at the end of the world. Oppenheimer’s deconstruction of the upper class finds itself unfortunately only scratching the surface level of what could be a very scathing thematic exploration of the state of the world as we know it.
For two and a half hours, it’s hard not to be singin’ the blues.
Image from The End, courtesy of Elevation Pictures.
