Seeking a Friend for the End of the World Movie Review

What would you do if the world was going to end??

Melancholy.. That’s the overriding sentiment I had watching this movie.

The premise is simple, what would you do if you knew the world was going to end?  We’ve all wondered it and asked our friends what they would do.  I’ve even used it as an icebreaker to get to know strangers at a party.  Some would say they would spend their last moments with their loved ones, some would just party until the end, some wouldn’t wait and would end things early, some would finally say what they’ve been meaning to say to someone special, the possibilities are endless.

We join Steve Carell and Keira Knightley about three weeks before all life on earth is wiped out courtesy of an asteroid called Matilda.  Mankind’s last attempts to stop it have failed.  Carell’s missus has run off leaving him to ponder how he’s potentially wasted his life and will likely die alone.  Queue an unusual rendezvous with Miss Knightley.  Both have been jilted and let down by people they thought they loved.  As people around them have meaningless sex, party, riot and just generally kinda go crazy, they manage to keep their sanity and stay rooted with each other’s company and form an unlikely friendship.  Knightley can’t forgive herself for not being with her family in the UK in these last moments and Carrell wonders about his first love, the one that got away from his past.  The two embark on a road trip.  Although they don’t really find what they initially set out to, they do find something much more important in each other and that’s what this story is really about.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is, in its essence, a love story, which just so happens to have the backdrop of the end of the world.  Those expecting Carell drilling into an Asteroid while Aerosmith plays in the background will be left short changed.  How was Carell in a serious role?  I thought he was pretty good.  At times he reminded me of Jim Carrey in The Truman Show in that you can’t completely forget Carells comedy pedigree, sometimes you just expect to see him throw a trident fork into someone riding a horse (Anchorman reference), but when the serious acting scenes came, Carell nailed them.   Knightley was good, dressed down in drab and shabby clothes, she too had plenty of opportunity to flare her acting chops and she did it well I would say.

There’s no doubt this is a slow movie but there are times when the film really slows to a dragging pace.  Thankfully, such moments never last too long and we can usually continue on our quaint journey of self discovery before we get too bored.  

This movie reminds us how people sometimes think they know what they want in life, but when they find it they realize they are wrong.  Often what is good for us is quite contrary to what we imagine it to be.

This was a decent movie.  It was slow but surprisingly thought provoking.  I found it lingering on my mind as I asked myself what I would do if I was faced with the end of days, whether I would be able to say farewell to the world happy and content or not. Would you?

Check it out.

Rating 3.5/5

Bobby