A post-apocalyptic anti-musical overwhelmed with guilt and grief, Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The End” follows a billionaire family and the cracks that start to form when a young woman shows up in the salt mines enclosing their lavish bunker. After his documentaries “The Act of Killing” and “The Look of Silence,” it’s a fitting story of the human condition for Oppenheimer to tackle in his narrative debut. The cast, featuring Tilda Swinton, George MacKay and Michael Shannon, is delightful. But the feelings of regret and resentment simmering within each character feel scattershot and incohesive within the film’s musical structure and languid pacing. Songs begin awkwardly and scenes end jarringly as the film meanders through its almost two-and-a-half-hour runtime. It’s an often underwhelming and anticlimactic film to sit through, but one that’s only grown on me the more I’ve sat with it. The eventual conclusion (or lack of one) that “The End” builds to is an effectively uncomfortable reminder of the compromises made and truths ignored by humanity in order to survive.
*This film screened at the 60th Chicago International Film Festival
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