Between “Wicked” and “Moana 2,” audiences are flocking to theaters in record numbers to get their eyes on two of the holiday season’s biggest movie musical events. “Moana 2” turned in one of the biggest opening weekends for an animated movie ever, while you can’t take a step outside your door or glance at your phone without being smacked by a piece of “Wicked” promo. It’s no surprise that viewers want to spend their time and money seeing these feel-good films, to unite with family and friends for a dose of cinematic happiness after one of the most quarrelsome years in recent memory. (Not to mention that all of the commotion is reassurance that theaters have indeed bounced back after the worst of the pandemic.)
“The End” is a stunningly made wonder that boldly looks to the future instead of cowering in the present.
But what about those of us who don’t mind feeling bad, maybe even a little sick to our stomachs? Those of us who find some solace in staring the uncertainty of the future square in the face while still enjoying some delightful song-and-dance numbers? For all who don’t care to maintain a cheery disposition as they leave the theater and face the wintry cold, there is Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The End,” a wildly ambitious film sitting at the pragmatic side of the movie musical spectrum. In his first narrative feature, Oppenheimer — a two-time Oscar nominee for his stirring documentary work — builds a world that’s as stylized, moving and filled with familiar faces breaking into song as any other theatrical event this season, with one significant difference: His film is about the end of the world.
If that’s an off-putting notion, it’s understandable; we spend enough time entrenched in anxiety as it is. But despite its bristly concept, “The End” largely forgoes any direct images of annihilation, settling into a vast underground bunker with seemingly endless resources well after most humans have perished. Here, we meet a tightly knit family who go about their days as if they still live among fresh air and friendly neighbors. Their jovial temperament is perched in direct conflict with their circumstances, a plight that they’ve learned to normalize to go on living instead of existing in permanent stasis. When an unexpected occurrence sends a ripple through their routine, each member of the household (or, bunkerhold) is fundamentally altered, forced to shine light on their darkest thoughts and impulses. Yet shockingly, Oppenheimer’s film is as touching as it is terrifying. “The End” is a stunningly made wonder that boldly looks to the future instead of cowering in the present, exhibiting a gentle, honest urgency unlike any other film this year.
The movie’s sheer singularity would be enough to cement “The End” as a great modern marvel, but once Oppenheimer begins to crack the facade his characters live behind, the movie sprawls open and takes exciting new form. Mother (Tilda Swinton), Father (Michael Shannon) and their Son (George MacKay) — who was born underground and has never seen the light of day — live in peaceful harmony alongside a few select helping hands. Mother’s Friend (Bronagh Gallagher) does the cooking and provides Son with the emotional support he can’t get from the brood’s repressed matriarch, while Butler (Tim McInnerny) and Doctor (Lennie James) tend to every other need. Their bunker, an astonishingly constructed salt mine, has a house, individual rooms, a swimming pool, a fishery and just about anything else you’d need in the aftermath of an ecoapocalypse.
Their seclusion is luxurious, but it still begets a certain loss of sanity. Aside from regular emergency drills that the family runs, they’ve all found enough monotonous contentment in their isolation to keep themselves from thinking of what life may be like above ground. A grand ensemble number opens the film, with characters exchanging verses that shrewdly extoll the family’s shared naivete and reveal each person’s neuroses. Most of the songs follow this pattern, as characters trade sections to create the kind of compelling, conversational lyricism you could find in a recent Lana Del Rey cut. The songs aren’t at all supplementary, and often, their storylike prose keeps the viewer absorbed where Oppenheimer’s non-musical writing falls flat.
Though its conceit is engrossing, Oppenheimer struggles to consistently build on the film’s initial momentum throughout its 148-minute runtime. The mysterious arrival of a stranger from the outside world, Girl (Moses Ingram), gives the film a critical amount of additional narrative thrust as she interrupts the family’s status quo and unearths long-buried truths. But “The End” is no ordinary film, and Oppenheimer is uninterested in forging one clear path forward through his story. Major revelations and smaller, implied truths move through his screenplay in tandem to create a distinctly human nuance. All of these characters — even the more objectively callous ones like Father, a retired energy industry magnate writing a revisionist biography to absolve his culpability — teem with empathy. In that way, Oppenheimer brilliantly manages to embed his first work of fiction with as much graceful compassion as his documentary work.
The End (Neon)While that complex mode of storytelling creates some tonal incongruity that may rub viewers the wrong way, “The End” remains completely undeniable. It’s a film that presents conflict as something that we can approach with curiosity rather than derision. Characters stop in their tracks to attempt to solve a new problem or deepen a conversation, though the narrative becomes occasionally disjointed as a result; watching “The End” sometimes feels like seeing someone take a big swing in very slow motion. But this compromise regularly gives way to moments bursting at the seams with beauty and tender resonance as they explore contemporary hopelessness and the shared delusion survivors adopt to bury their guilt. For this family, survival blurs into care. But at the same time, a type of care built on survival can never be real love.
It will come as no surprise to longtime devotees that it’s Swinton who steals this spectacular show.
Because “The End” relies so heavily on its ensemble, it works better when its characters interact. But the film also boasts some phenomenal solo numbers, like MacKay’s expressive song “Alone” which appears early in the movie. It’s a primarily one-shot showcase of the actor’s massive talent as he dances, kicks and falls all over the film’s grand sets. These songs look and feel like old-Hollywood-style musical numbers, but charm because of their imperfections; characters sing off-key, they lose their breath and their voices crack. MacKay’s voice, however, is remarkable on its own, and he turns in another one of 2024’s finest performances after his work in “The Beast” earlier this year.
But it will come as no surprise to longtime devotees that it’s Swinton who steals this spectacular show. As Mother, Swinton is at once stoic and soft, reserved and romantic. Her arc is the film’s most fascinating, and regrettably, the only one that is explored with enough depth to really capture the heart. Mother’s solo song, “The Mirror,” is an evocative, gut-wrenching number that instantly proves itself as a late-breaking contender for musical performance of the year. During the song’s middle section, as Mother evocatively recalls winters that smelled of oranges and cinnamon, she finally confesses to missing her family and all of the small idiosyncrasies she couldn’t appreciate until they were gone. “Mom can’t tell jokes because she always cracks up when she’s nearing the punchline,” Swinton sings, “so does your grandson, he can’t tell them either.” Realizing she wishes that her parents could meet her only child, Mother stops herself and reorients her song to avoid her grief, but it’s a deviation she won’t be able to continue forever. Shortly after, the lingering feeling of regret reorients the family dynamic once more.
It may seem strange to find yourself with songs about cataclysmic loss and the end of the world rattling around your head as you depart the theater, but that’s part of Oppenheimer’s point. We should be familiar with the reality of the future but unafraid to confront it and plan for it, not just in terms of tactical preparation but in regards to how we treat people, what we buy, who we give our time and money to and what we do with our lives. By making a musical about the end of existence as we know it, Oppenheimer cleverly allows us to raise our heads above the deluge of bad news and social media fear-mongering to view the world plainly and with fervent empathy. “The End” is not a fantasy, and it won’t provide the same pleasant comforts and fighting spirit that can be seen by popping into the theater next door and catching “Wicked” for the ninth time. But sitting in that discomfort is a vital feeling, one that is sure to spark action, even if that action is just admiring the holiday season’s inevitable chaos and how special it is that we get to feel it at all.
“The End” is currently in theaters.
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