Polygon’s animation team is connected to Sundance Film Festival 2021, which has become virtual for the first time. Here’s what you need to know about the indie gems coming soon to streaming services, theaters, and the cinematic zeitgeist.
Logline: On Earth’s last day, as a planet-destroying asteroid heads toward Earth, a clumsy woman named Liza (co-writer and co-director Zoe Lister-Jones) and her young self (Cailee Spaeny) drive through Los Angeles together in front of people, determined to finally close their relationships before it is all over.
Longest line: If you knew exactly when you were going to die, what would you do before you left? The question makes up a rich cinematic theory, and filmmakers have found a wide variety of answers, of a poisoned man trying to solve his own murder before dying in the dark of the 1950s. PRAY to a woman who especially sows a panic of contagious death to all those she meets in the 2020s She dies tomorrow.
In How it ends, Liza and her young self decide instead that it’s time to finally test honesty. Liza has spent her life avoiding confrontations and emotional conflicts, to the point of running away from a relationship with a man she loved. On the last day before oblivion, she decides to visit Los Angeles and confront her parents separately, a friend she broke up with and the guy who repeatedly cheated on her. She hopes to end her life in a drug-fueled apocalyptic ordeal and tell the love of her life how she truly feels about him.
Slightly complicating his plans: the presence of his young self. It is implied that young Liza has been invisibly hanging out with Liza for a long time, but mysteriously other people can now see and hear her, which both Liza shrug their shoulders as part of the class at a time when everything the world seems a little more tuned. to infinity. It’s a weird device, but it gives Liza a cheerleader and facilitator who constantly pushes her out of her comfort zone, and most of the actual drama in the movie comes from the natural conflict between the young me and the me current, given how much they’ve grown apart. .
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what is it How it ends Try to do? In the Q&A after the film’s premiere at the 2021 Sundance Virtual Film Festival, writer-director partners Lister-Jones (The profession: heritage) and Daryl Wine (White Rabbit) admitted that How it ends it was his attempt to make sense of the COVID-19 pandemic and the closures that followed. Lister-Jones said: “We don’t really know of a way, for better or worse, to deal with existential crises except through our work … [it] serves as therapy “.
In a way, it makes How it ends it’s no different than others’ never-ending quest to make the best sourdough bread. But the timing of the film’s production (it was shot in late spring and early fall 2020) explains a lot about the set, like how Los Angeles looks oddly empty and how the various showdowns planned. for Liza take place outdoors, usually with participants. about six feet away. It also explains the story’s difficult relationship with death – all characters are focused on the impending global extinction event, but at the same time, no one seems particularly concerned. It’s like they’ve lived with massive death on their heads for months and started to find the expectations tedious. Most of the characters have reached a philosophical point where they have reflected on their apocalypse plans and present them with casual sadness.
It seems partly metaphorical: As with the pandemic, the characters here face the exact same existential crisis at the same time, but each has been plunged into near death long enough to deal with it in their idiosyncratic ways. At the same time, all of these methods seem to be totally LA-centric approaches. Many of Angelenos Liza’s talks seem flippant about the apocalypse because they are so self-medicated. Most speak the language of self-help books and spiritualism seminars, especially a happily drugged couple played by Mary Elizabeth Ellis and Charlie Day, who meet from The weather is always nice in Philly. Stroking a giant crystal and shouting things that they enjoy about each other (“Feet!” “Oral sex!”), They fearlessly walk towards death. Likewise, when Liza visits her father (Bradley Whitford, cheerful and hilarious as usual) to confront him about his failures, he encourages him with primitive howls and pushing gestures, all while trying to take his full advantage. negative energy and release it. Over the course of multiple encounters, Liza’s acquaintances casually talk about the next life they are heading towards, as if to explain why they aren’t too nervous about leaving it.
This sweet hippie atmosphere seems destined to be particularly therapeutic; Aside from random encounters with disputed neighbors, the Liza mostly encounter peaceful people and positive emotions. Almost everyone seems sincere and willing to cooperate in their attempt at reconciliation. Liza has big issues with her mother (Helen Hunt), but they talk about it honestly and openly. She’s angry with her cheating ex, Larry (Lamorne Morris), but he’s ready to listen and give comments, kindly, if not quite sincere. For a film where nearly 8 billion people are about to die in the flames, How it ends it’s pretty laid back.
The quote that says it all: Tonight I just want to get high, devour myself, then die.
Does he succeed? This lack of meaningful conflict also means the film lacks urgency or a top-down or top-down sense of action. For the most part, it’s just a series of incidents, each of which follows the line between comedy and drama quite closely. The writers and directors explained during the question-and-answer session that some scenes are strictly written, while others were largely improvised, which explains the variation in tones and stiffness. The ridiculous crossing over of the confrontation with Larry is the climax, as Liza bravely waves a boombox, You say nothing style, then she tries to express her frustration with him through the words of Alanis Morrisette. But other scenes move around a central gag without going anywhere in particular, and the film’s greatest drama suddenly emerges, without the feeling of growing tension that would have made it feel like a natural part and inevitable of history.
What does this bring us? How it ends not as depressing and exhausting as the similar Melancholy, Lars von Trier’s 2011 study of depression in the days before Earth was destroyed by an asteroid. It doesn’t explore as many variations in response to near death as Looking for a friend for the end of the world, The 2012 Lorene Scafaria comedy drama that similarly follows the preparation for an asteroid-based extinction event. Mainly, which leads to an inevitable future, the threefold characteristic of “Death By Asteroid” is warmth and elevation: it is understated in the extreme, full of quirk and charm. In this version of the apocalypse, even the most narcissistic and egotistical people on Liza’s friends list are well-meaning and supportive.
The other thing he brings is this weird device of the Inner Child (or in this cast, the Inner Twenties), which Lister-Jones says the filmmakers drew from the healing tools. What the film lacks most, however, is the feeling that the camera is really needed. It allows for some tension in the final film, but the film still feels like it lacks the kind of end-to-end revelations about Liza and her young self that would make sense of this great central split. Thematically, since everyone happily gives Liza time to speak her truths and find her center and all, sometimes at their expense, the only person she’s not at peace with is herself. But this idea seems basic and the execution is just as basic. There is a lot of potential humor and trauma to her daily interaction with her young self, but the script barely scratches the surface.
The most basic problem with How it ends It’s what it sounds like exactly what it is: a hobby project started by a bunch of bored people looking to deal with their own anxiety. Of course, those boring folks include Fred Armisen, Paul Scheer, Nick Kroll, Rob Huebel, Sharon Van Etten, Olivia Wilde, and even Finn Wolfhard in a little phone cameo, so the movie has some of the vibe of a podcast from the Los Angeles comedy. , where every casual acquaintance also has some level of fame in its own right. But the story seems a little armed. It’s a pretty cool movie to hang out with, and one day it could be presented as a biased portrayal of what people have enough privilege to ignore the politics of mid-2020. But it still feels like a minor movie in the face of a major disaster.
The most memorable moment: Virtually all of the shots in which Liza and Young Liza exchange meaningful, critical looks are the main elements of the “Me for Me” or “Me / Me Too” meme.
When can we see it? How it ends He is currently looking for a distribution.