The End Parent Guide

Swing and a miss.

I love movies that swing for the fences. I would rather a movie be ambitious and fail than boring and safe. The End is a film that somehow does both poorly.

In The End, social and environmental cataclysms have ravaged the surface of the planet making it all but inhabitable. The plot follows a nameless wealthy family who have used their resources to build a bunker in a salt mine. They reside there with Mother and Father (Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon) and Son (George Mackay). The family has brought along some friends and staff to assist with their stay in the bunker.

As the film follows the daily underground routine, we learn that Son has been infantilized by his life underground and lacks any social awareness. His life consists of editing Father’s memoirs and doing art with Mother. A mysterious Girl (Moses Ingram) manages to find her way into the bunker and the Family’s life. They debate killing her or sending her out but eventually decide to allow her to stay. As the film progresses, a budding relationship develops between Son and Girl, leading to challenges between Son and his parents.

It is slowly (very slowly) revealed that the family was complicit in the downfall of humanity and thus their own lives underground. Father grapples with his role in the apocalypse, while Son looks to the future – such as it is within the narrow confines of their existence.

That synopsis may seem short for a two- and half-hour movie but that’s it in a nutshell. The End seems unsure of what exactly it wants to be. It tries to be a satire and a musical while also being political, environmentally conscious, and exploring deep family relationships and the complicated relationship between adult children and parents. I dislike writing this review because, at its core, The End raises some serious themes but they are treated as an afterthought, lacking any deep exploration as to why they matter. The characters are one dimensional and uninteresting. The music is forgettable (and bloats the runtime). The acting is passable.

This is a film that will frustrate audiences: although its themes and topics are worthwhile, they result in a movie goulash that manages to be incredibly boring. I found myself constantly checking the time to see what was left in the show and wondering when it would just end.

The rich build a bunker while everyone else dies and they learn nothing. This is why The End feels like it lacks ambition. A satirical musical about a family grappling with isolation and their role in leading to that isolation sounds great on paper but the execution plays it safe by glossing over the complicated layers of its narrative. There is brief commentary on the Family’s contribution to the events preceding going underground but the writing and pacing come across as “and then they all learned their lesson and lived happily every after. The End” (see what I did there?).

I think this could have been a great movie – satirical and thought-provoking - but it falls flat. I cannot recommend this film for most viewers as the flat delivery and poorly developed themes do not compensate for objectionable content. If this is the end of the road for humanity, it feels like a blind alley.