Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

An average Joe, whose fairly eventless life gets worse after it’s announced that an asteroid will soon hit the Earth and end human life as we know it. Sure sounds like a bit of a downer, but the presence of Steve Carell on the cast list makes the film’s outlook a bit brighter, but only just. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is an odd little movie that has two very well-known leads. As Carell’s character attempts to approach his end of days in a calm way, he comes across a letter from an old love, which says that she still has feelings for him. So with the help of his neighbor, (Kiera Knightley) who had the letter among a pile of mis-delivered mail, they go on a long distance trip to attempt to find the old flame. In exchange for her help, Carell’s character promises Knightley’s that he will find her a plane and pilot to get home to her family in England.

The film seesaws between wide-release inclusiveness and indie pretension. The guilty culprit is the way Knightley’s character is written. From the clueless nature in which she approaches her unlikeable boyfriend (Adam Brody) to the snobbish way she explains the benefits of listening to music on vinyl, there’s a sense that the audience is expected to nod along thinking, “she’s so right!” But instead it just makes the loveable dolt that Carell plays even more sympathetic.

Seeking a Friend has a number of funny and appealing moments, but the helplessness that usually builds plotline urgency in disaster movies just isn’t there. If there were only two weeks left until the end of the world, I don’t see these two people lollygagging around on the way to their final destinations. At the end of the day, it’s not that I don’t believe the performances; it’s more that I don’t believe their place in the circumstances.

Each film earns either zero, a half or a full arrow in five categories. The categories are Acting, Writing/Directing, Emotion, Innovation and Overall Impression. The arrows are added up to equal the full score.