Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)
“Put some Radiohead on. I wanna do heroin to Radiohead”
As an obsessive fan of the Oxford band Radiohead, any film containing the line “Put some Radiohead on. I wanna do heroin to Radiohead” immediately gets my seal of approval and not of course for the dangerous Class A drug I wouldn’t touch for the all the love songs in the world, but for the deadpan joke for a band I hold closer to my heart than any other. It’s a brilliantly played (off camera) gag in a film full to the brim with such acidic comedic twists intertwined around two fantastic central performances of yearning and finding peace in a world soon to be destroyed by an asteroid from Steve Carell and Keira Knightley, and a film I adored when I first watched it immediately on release a dozen or so years ago and all these years of listening to the magnificent sounds of Radiohead later, I love this film even more now.
Why is simply explained: I am the Steve Carell character here, lost and disillusioned with a world spinning around me that whatever the circumstances, still continues to turn despite my melancholic air of wanting a reconnection with a love of my life and finding peace with the past instead of living as a ghost in the present. Keira Knightley’s character is everyone’s preferred companion for the end of the world: Alive, bright, madly unhinged, living for the moment, respectful of the past, and a record collection to pun intended die for! The sound track to the movie is a delight: Although absent of Radiohead, you have the delights of The Beach Boys, INXS, PM Dawn, Scissor Sisters and two late scenes in particular are brilliantly realised to the sounds of The Walker Brothers (“The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore”) and The Hollies (“The Air That I Breathe”) and in between you have a ditzy, soft hearted young lady leading the way on a road trip to the end of the world with a dour, defeated melancholic man and his dog named “Sorry” as they’re mistaken for a hired hit team for a suicide, the cult of happiness they find inside a roadside diner and some jailtime with a man carrying an A-Board announcing the end of the world!
Written and Directed by Lorene Scafaria in her debut feature length release, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is a magnificent way of spending 101 minutes with someone you love.
Here’s my dissection of the opening 13 minutes:
From white on black opening credits and the beginnings of a continuing news bulletin on the radio describing the explosion of the Space Shuttle “Deliverance”, we fade to an overhead shot of a single parked car on a road bathed in shadows late at night as the news report gravely intones the earth’s “last and best hope” for salvation is gone. We now cut to a close-up of the car radio itself amid the continuing news report of a final attempt to divert or destroy the 70 mile wide asteroid known as “Matilda” has failed and now to the distraught and dumbfounded faces of “Dodge” (Steve Carell) and wife “Linda” (Nancy Carell) unable to take in this breaking news and with three weeks until the end of the world staring, wordless and broken, straight ahead. As the DJ on the radio cheerily requests his listeners to stay tuned to the radio station for the “end of days” destruction ahead, the first of the film’s brilliant, and brilliantly ironic array of tunes begins with The Beach Boys and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and although the car has clearly been stationary and parked for some time, Dodge announces “I think we missed the exit” as his wife first stares at him, clearly upset and full of anger, before exiting the car, slamming the car door, and running toward a nearby house.
“DAY — 21” and from this white on black title slide we cut to a wall full of bill posters and in particular “Hire an Assassin” and “Fuck a Virgin” as the film’s opening credits continue accompanied by a cheerful, jaunty jazz soundtrack, the final bill poster of the opening credits and “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World” and immediately to Dodge working out in his local gym whilst transfixed to the rolling news reports on a small television. With the availability of water, power, electricity and all of life’s essential every-day ingredients soon to be cut off forever, the news report conveys details of an “End of the World Events Concert” as we now cut to a frustrated Dodge stuck in a traffic jam trying to drive to work. The first of the film’s stark juxtapositions are brilliantly displayed as Dodge tries to snake his way through stationary cars, people stranded, panicking in the middle of the road and all the while life continues as swimmers carrying surfboards walk through the crowded streets, heading for a nearby beach. Fighting through traffic and finally parking his car and heading into work, Dodge is immediately greeted by a sparsely populated office, paper and files on the floor, and as we cut to a ringing telephone, a photo of Dodge’s wife Linda in a frame on his desk and Dodge explaining to a customer on the telephone that “the Armageddon package is extra, yes”, every light on his telephone panel is permanently blinking, calls waiting, telephones ringing, and with seemingly no-one else working in his insurance office he asks his current customer to hold as he in facts hangs up on them before being sick into a nearby bin.
We cut to a large office and with only six employees present, including the manager, we see a vast array of empty chairs, a young lady in the front row sobbing uncontrollably, and as the manager cheerfully exclaims that there are several vacancies in upper management and even a vacant position for a CFO, the camera settles on Dodge looking bored, disinterested and as vacant as the room that surrounds him as a colleague next to him exclaims “life has no meaning”. Dodge utters an inaudible reply, staring blankly ahead. Walking home from work, a second of the film’s juxtapositions of life seemingly continuing as normal shows Dodge slowly walking with the weight of a dying world on his shoulders as a raft of excited cyclists circle behind him before Dodge, drowning in melancholic thoughts, passes a news stand promoting a final, special edition of “News Today” and their front page of Jesus Christ next to Oprah Winfrey and their banner headline “Best of Humanity”. As Dodge walks out of shot we next find him approaching the entrance to his apartment building as a man quickly rushes past him carrying a round fishbowl (with a single fish) and after checking his mailbox (empty), “Penny” (Keira Knightley) now rushes past him carrying a selection of vinyl records and away from the apartment she shares with her boyfriend.
Life is continuing all around a deeply depressed and broken man who clearly can’t make sense of the catastrophe heading for earth or the more personal destruction already inflicted upon this painfully lonely man now entering his apartment. Calling out his wife’s name, he is instead met by his cleaner “Elsa” (Tonita Castro) and through awkward smiles Dodge asks her if she’d like to hang around now that she’s finished and perhaps watch some television with him. After Elsa smiles and explains that her children are waiting for her at home, Dodge awkwardly suggests, but doesn’t actually say, that as the end of the world is imminent she doesn’t need to return next week, but his awkwardness hangs in the air and mistakenly believing he is firing her, Elsa’s smile drains away to a look of utter sadness and despair as she exclaims “Is it because I don’t watch the TV with you?”. Dodge, still not explaining his reasoning, instead smiles awkwardly and says he looks forward to seeing Elsa next week as usual and smiling with relief, Elsa leaves Dodge standing alone, muttering something largely inaudible surrounding the coming end of the world. Now seen opening a bathroom cabinet and drinking his wife’s medicine straight from a bottle in front of the television, the rolling news report throws from the studio to a traffic reporter for an update and a “We’re fucked, Bob!” exclamation from the reporter, and back to Dodge now later in the evening, flossing in front of his bathroom mirror. He spots a spider in a nearby sink and after first trying to shoo it away thinks better of it (it is the end of the world after all) and we next see a sleeping Dodge, and a small spider crawling across his cheek. Cut to the following morning and Dodge driving to work, his cheek ablaze in hives and red spots left by the spider in its wake and a clearly irritable and downbeat Dodge finally arriving in his parking spot at work. As he looks at the blazing red hives on his cheek, the body of a man jumping from his office block lands on the bonnet of his car, smashing the windscreen, scaring Dodge witless.
“DAY 14” and from this white on black title slide we find Dodge arriving early and amid a continuing and bitterly angry drunken exchange between “Warren” (Rob Corddry) and wife “Diane (Connie Britton) ahead of their end of the world party or, in the words of a recklessly, care free, and already drunk Warren, “The Last Supper”. Despite his friendship with Warren, Dodge clearly wants to be anywhere, anywhere but at their party, and as the married couple continue their drunken feud they continue talking about Dodge rather than to him, and about the man standing awkwardly in their kitchen rather than actually to him and engaging him in their ongoing argument, sorry, conversation! Warren exclaims his friend doesn’t want to be set up with one of his wife’s “gross friends” at their party and “he’s fine”, to which Diane responds “he’s not” and after breaking Dodge’s already fragile spirit still further by suggesting Linda left him because she was never happy in their marriage “he’s gonna die alone”. Dodge, awkwardly standing in the corner of the kitchen and barely inside a house he clearly didn’t want to enter in the first place remains wordless, barely able to contribute to an ongoing conversation about him, but which he has no involvement in. “He’s gonna die like the rest of us” exclaims Warren, before sidling up to his old friend and drunkenly stating “This is the Titanic! Welcome aboard”.
Later in the evening we cut to an overly excited Diane introducing her friend “Karen” (Melanie Lynskey) to a downbeat and disinterested Dodge who barely utters a word in response to Karen’s giggling infatuation with him before we cut once more and to a dining table full with cocktails and end of the world revellers excitedly announcing their plans before the asteroid hits earth. Now Karen’s turn, she excitedly states she’s going to take some long wished for pottery classes, eat everything she can lay her hands on and, pointing at Dodge sitting awkwardly and nervously next to her, spend some time with “someone special”. Dumbfounded and deadpan, Dodge swallows nervously before speaking and as he asks for the question to be repeated, an unseen child behind him ignites a loud party popper that jolts him from his seat! We cut to a clearly drunk Warren urging a very young child to drink a cocktail and “fight through the burn” to Karen dancing alone (to the second of the film’s brilliant choice of songs and “Devil Inside” by INXS) as she points to Dodge and implores him to join her. Suffice to say, he declines, awkwardly! But perhaps he should have joined his dancing queen as “Roache” (Patton Oswalt) raises himself from the carpet after a drunken wrestling match and exclaims “the sky is falling and it’s raining pussy” before suggesting he and Dodge “double stuff that cookie”, pointing at Karen! The end of the world clearly can’t come soon enough for Dodge as someone excitedly shouts that heroin is available and as the first volunteer primes herself, Warren exclaims, in a deadpan manner perhaps only a true aficionado of Radiohead can truly appreciate…
“Put some Radiohead on. I wanna do heroin to Radiohead”.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my trilogy of recently self-published books. Beautiful covers eh! As the title(s) would suggest, this is my life at the movies or at least from 1980 to 2024, and in volume 1 you’ll find 80 spoiler free appraisals of movies from debut filmmakers, 91 of the very best films appraised with love and absent of spoilers from 1990–2024 in volume 2, and in volume 3 you’ll find career “specials” on Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino together with the very best of the rest and another 87 spoiler free film reviews from 2001–2024.
All available in hardback and paperback and here are some handy links:
"A Life at the Movies Vol.1" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.2" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.3" - link to Amazon