REVIEW: Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)

Despite a cumbersome title, this dramedy starring Steve Carell and Keira Knightley is a pretty subtle, quiet and sometimes beautiful little movie. I didn’t even know about this thing until I saw the trailer for it before Prometheus, just two weeks before it came out. But I actually ended up liking this one better than the aforementioned sci-fi blockbuster…go figure.

Director: Lorene Scafaria

Starring: Steve Carell, Keira Knightley

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1307068/

This movie is an end of the world flick that doesn’t focus too much on the scientific reasons for the world’s end or even the bigger picture – it just focuses on the life of one guy (Carell) and those around him. And surprisingly, it works really well. I always like movies that do this, because it just gives a much more humanistic, natural spin on the usual kinds of stories these topics generate. The human element is the most interesting part of any movie, especially something as monumental and alien as the end of the world. I want to see the individual, common man’s dilemma in the face of Armageddon. And this movie delivers.

Seeking a Friend works because of its blend of comedy and drama. The first twenty minutes or so has some pretty standard Steve Carell styled comedy, where he’s all awkward and whatnot, but that doesn’t last long and isn’t played up to any kind of exaggerated levels. And even during those parts, there is a subtly somber sadness that enhances the comedy, playing off the fact that it’s the end of the world. The movie never quite shoves that fact in your face, but it is always there beneath the surface, the catalyst for the more personal relationship forged in the movie’s runtime. Carell actually does a good job here and conveys the sober, serious tone very well while also allowing the funny parts to shine through. The balance is well done.

Knightley gives a good performance too, as the very British and quirky female neighbor who Carell befriends in the midst of the chaotic happenings all around him. They grow close and share some very tender and also some very funny moments on screen, as is typical of these kinds of movies, but it’s all handled with delicacy and delivered with sincerity, so I like it. The seedy, desolate country atmosphere of a lot of the latter half of the film really serves to drive home how alone people really are with the impending end of the world – everyone, at the end of his or her days, is alone, and with the collective end approaching, who is left?

As such, it becomes a very poignant picture, and the effect of the movie will linger on you long after you walk out of the theater. And I think that makes it a good movie, so go see it if it has piqued your interest at all.

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Review: Date Night (2010) TH

A night of misadventures and misunderstandings

Phil (Carell) and Claire (Fey) Foster are an average couple from New Jersey who have harmless full time jobs, two highly active kids and most importantly no time to build on the romance and adventure they once started out with. They seem to have become a cross between best friends and brother and sister, as they're familiar enough to give out sarcastic and sometimes dry jokes with some comedic observations thrown in at what was them or could really be them. They're so busy and responsible that they hardly noticed the slump of doing the same ol' things in the same ol' order until their close friends the Sullivans (Mark Ruffalo, Kristen Wiig) are getting a separation from lack of wind in their sails. Claire and Phil decide to turn a regular date night into one they'll remember, except it ends up being more than they bargained for.

After getting shot down for a reservation at a trendy, upscale restaurant called Claw over in New York, they pretend to be the Tripplehorns to snag a table. Quicker than you can say, "If you're looking for trouble, it's bound to find you," two guys who appear to be restaurant employees ask the now drunk couple to step outside. Soon enough things turn for the "North by Northwest" worst, as these are gun waving fellows are looking to get a flashdrive back for their boss Joe Miletto (Ray Liotta) and don't believe the two aren't really the Tripplehorns. Instead of getting filled with lead, Phil and Claire go with the flow and make up information in hopes that something will come up in the meantime. Opportunity strikes and they get away only to find themselves jumping back and forth to escape the two that look like henchmen but might be something else.

From one location to the next, they end up breaking every other law, get help from the continually shirtless private security guy named Holbrooke Grant (Mark Wahlberg), to meeting the real Tripplehorns called Whippit (Mila Kunis) and Taste (James Franco) that are just a couple of movie referencing Bonnie and Clydes who got in over their heads. This is an exaggerated cinematic world where regular people exceed and bad guys are really bad. Everyone is a caricature of their type from shady gangsters, perverted politicians to corrupt cops, which makes the experience purposely silly and far from ground-breaking but still a somewhat fun formula because it doesn't even take itself seriously. Some situations jump the ship of just being plain dumb, such as both attempting to pole dance and then like a miss episode of SNL it carries on far too long. There's a tad of action between the one-liners and sometimes inventive remarks, including an impossible but wild car chase and some guns waved and fired. Fey and Carell are both energetic and well-timed out with their back and forth banter in between their characters trying to figure out an exit strategy. This is about two regular folks attempting to save their own skin and simultaneously save the day. Been there, done that countless times, but it's still an easy and unchallenging ride to relax and loosen up with to pass the time even if it doesn't claim to be a first rate film.

Director: Shawn Levy (Just Married, Night at the Museum)
Starring: Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Mark Wahlberg, Ray Liotta, Mark Ruffalo, Kristen Wiig
Website: IMDB


Quotes:

Claire: "That's amazing, Jeremy, but I'm gonna go home now and fart into a shoe box."

Woman at book club meeting: "This part really spoke to me. I mean, to walk 20 miles for water, and then to suddenly discover that you're menstruating?"
Phil: "Quite sad."
Woman: "Sir, you have no idea what it is like to be a teenage girl having your first period under Taliban rule."

Taste: "This is about how I'm an asshole all the time, huh? How you have no trust that I can pull things through."
Whippit: "Yeah!"
Taste: "How I can't do anything right? I buy the wrong soda?"
Whippit: "Yeah."
Taste: "The wrong beer!"
Phil: "I hear you, man."
Taste: "The wrong nipple clamps."
Phil: "Well..."
Whippit: "Those clamps hurt me!"