The End (2024, dir. Joshua Oppenheimer) – BFI London Film Festival

by | Oct 20, 2024

Certificate: TBC

Running Time: 148 mins

UK Distributor: MUBI

UK Release Date: TBC

REVIEWED AT BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2024

WHO’S IN THE END?

Tilda Swinton, Michael Shannon, George MacKay, Moses Ingram, Bronagh Gallagher, Tim McInnerny, Lennie James, Danielle Ryan

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Joshua Oppenheimer (director, writer, producer), Rasmus Heisterberg (writer), Tilda Swinton and Signe Byrge Sørensen (producers), Marius De Vries and Josh Schmidt (composers), Mikhail Krichman (cinematographer), Nils Pagh Andersen (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A wealthy family comes to terms with its role in the apocalypse…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON [TITLE]?

It’s been brought up a lot lately how movie musicals nowadays do not seem to have as much power as they once did. Recent financial underperformers like West Side Story, The Colour Purple, In the Heights and Joker: Folie à Deux have solidified that, for whatever reason, the appetite for singing and dancing in movies no longer aligns with general audience interest, and some have even gone on to declare that this is the end of the movie musical in its entirety.

Of course, that kind of thinking is folly. Musicals will find their place in the larger public consciousness once more, and filmmakers will find new and inventive ways to convey their narratives through song and dance as their predecessors once did. Take documentarian Joshua Oppenheimer, whose debut narrative feature The End is not only a full-blown musical, complete with show-stopping numbers galore, but is also one that takes some noble risks within a narrative that embraces its own identity as much as it can.

Given its somewhat dreary nature, though, The End is unlikely to become the audience hit that the musical genre desperately needs right now. But as an artistic expression of relevant and timely themes through the power of song, it’s bound to become something of a cult favourite among its niche crowd.

The film takes place entirely within an underground bunker, some years after the world has succumbed to an unspecified climate catastrophe. Inside lives a wealthy couple (Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon), their adult son (George MacKay), their chef friend (Bronagh Gallagher), their butler (Tim McInnerny) and their doctor (Lennie James). They have made a comfortable enough life for themselves, surrounded by numerous paintings on the walls, a healthy supply of food and drink and other resources, and every so often practise hazardous safety drills in case danger ever comes to their doorstep. Soon, though, they find themselves in the company of a young woman (Moses Ingram) who has somehow found her way from the ravaged surface, and her arrival causes an avalanche of guilt and regret among the family… especially given how likely it is that they were major contributors to the global disaster itself.

Given its largely contained nature, with the whole film taking place around the same sets, one might come to the false conclusion that The End may have initially been intended for the stage. Though this is very much an original film, director and co-writer Oppenheimer manages to evoke that theatrical feeling nonetheless, especially as the filmmaker sometimes frames his musical numbers as though he is making something for the stage. Though the sets themselves are well-crafted, and the cinematography by Mikhail Krichman captures the eerie isolation that surrounds its core cast, the ways in which Oppenheimer uses character blocking and even the lighting to showcase his numbers often resemble something that you may well find on Broadway or the West End, to where you almost want to see someone take this film and properly adapt it into an actual stage production further down the line.

The songs themselves, also co-created by Oppenheimer, are not necessarily toe-tapping – though it literally is in one case, as Tim McInnerny engages in a brief but memorable tap-dancing number – but they are well-written, as they effectively convey the inner thoughts of its characters and help to move the story along whenever it needs to. They are performed by an ensemble cast that, while not exactly the strongest of singers, remain firmly dedicated to belting out some tunes of varying tones, with Moses Ingram being a standout as a woman overcome with guilt and grief for those she was forced to leave behind. The actor has some powerful moments where she gets to shed some tears in front of actors like Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon, who similarly have their fair share of strong incidents where they are faced with the psychological consequences of their previous actions.

However, the film as a whole carries a number of flaws that prevent consistent viewer engagement. At nearly two-and-a-half hours long, there are long stretches of the movie where very little appears to be happening, and after a while it does begin to test your patience as it becomes repetitive in its actual storytelling. It eventually reaches a point where, despite being initially drawn in to the plot and its musical identity, you start to lose interest as it becomes increasingly clear that there is little going on beyond the psychological ramifications of what this family did to the world around them. In particular, one dramatic turn later on comes out of almost nowhere, as a means to spice up what has become a largely meandering narrative.

A film that carries this kind of premise was never going to be a crowd-pleaser (as much as the musical numbers themselves might have you think), but The End still manages to surprise with how much of a downer it is, ultimately succumbing to a bleak message about the injustices of our current society that could well lead to the future as depicted in this movie. For that reason, as well as that it’s all told with songs and dancing, I can see this movie finding a niche audience over time, though as a potential saviour for the musical genre as a whole, it’s a bit of a non-starter.

SO, TO SUM UP…

The End is an ambitious musical that tells its post-apocalyptic tale of family, class, guilt and regret in interesting fashion, though despite committed performances the film is ultimately not as heavy as it claims to be.

Three out of five stars

Click here to find how you can see The End at this year’s BFI London Film Festival!

Other than that, it’s too early for cinema showtimes, but click here to stay updated!

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