Certification. 15
Running Time. 1 hour 41 mins
Director. Lorene Scafaria
Cast. Connie Britton, Steve Carell, Keira Knightley, William Petersen, Martin Sheen.
Rating. 57%
The world as we know it will end in three weeks. What would you do in those three weeks?
That's the central thread of Lorene Scafaria's debut feature, Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World starring Steve Carell and Keira Knightley. A romantic comedy, but set against a mass extinction event.
I like the Steve Carell of Little Miss Sunshine, Crazy, Stupid, Love and Welcome To Marwen. While his customary humour is present, in these roles, Carell brings a pathos or vulnerability to the character. And this is very much the Steve Carell of Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World. He plays Dodge Petersen, a quiet, subdued, moist-eyed insurance salesman. Carell delivers a performance that is unexpectedly touching.
Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World is wildly inconsistent. The pace sometimes drags and the focus often strays, and even when the sum of the parts doesn't always come together with the desired impact, the script is full of surprises. There is an emotionally devasting one-sided phone conversation between Penny (Keira Knightley) and her parents. A heartbreaking watch, elegantly executed.
The romance is sparse, and there is little natural chemistry between Carell and Knightley, but something unexpected happens in the final chapter. I start to care about the characters. Dodge and Penny find a definition of love that pulls at the heartstrings. One that is irresistibly moving. How could you fail to get even the slightest choked up at the end of the film?
Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World would suggest that the initial proposition is flawed. The question should not be, "what would you do in those three weeks?" but rather, "who would you wish to spend them with?"
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