Screenwriter Lorene Scafaria’s directorial debut, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, tells the story of an unlikely couple, a boring insurance salesman whose wife has run out on him (Steve Carell), and a manic pixie dream girl who’s obsessed with collecting records (Keira Knightley), meeting and forming a relationship in the face of a giant meteor coming to destroy the Earth. They embark on a road trip meant to reunite Carell’s character with a lost love and Knightley’s with her family, and, as in any road trip movie, complications arise along the way. The problem with this movie is, probably there weren’t as many complications as there should have been.
For a story set during the apocalypse, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World can be pretty boring. There are a couple jump scare moments that feel like they’re out of a horror movie, but other than that our duo faces very little danger. We’re told there are deadly riots going on, but they only happen in the scenes where the script needs deadly riots to be going on. At every other moment, when we’re supposed to be focusing on the lovey-dovey stuff developing between the leads, the danger magically disappears. This movie wants to have its cake and eat it too, and ends up feeling like a tonally confused trifle. If it had stayed true to its world and created some consistency, then maybe there could have been some poignance to the catharsis the character’s find, or at least some relatability. Instead what we’re watching plays like a series of phony vignettes, a mildly amusing fairy tale that you can either pay attention to or not, depending on your mood.
The thing that saves the film from being a total waste is that there are moments when it’s legitimately funny. Enough so that every time you start to feel yourself drifting off there’s a laugh to jolt you back awake. I could never completely hate on a film that contains the line, “Put some Radiohead on. I want to do heroine to Radiohead.” Also, Carell and Knightley’s performances are endearing enough that they manage to take two characters who feel like one-dimensional caricatures who would never actually form a bond, and make you like them and cheer for their romantic connection anyway. Any movie that makes you smile when a creepy old guy kisses a 28-year-old can’t be all bad, can it?
