The End

I really wanted to enjoy this musical comedy because writer/director Joshua Oppenheimer made one of the best documentaries I've seen-The Act of Killing. The ending with Anwar dry heaving on the roof remains one of the most memorable endings to anything ever.

I was amped to see his first fictional film here. It's a mixed bag sadly.

Firstly the pace is so slow and laborious that mid way through I was getting fidgety, there wasn't much drama or tension which for a film about a family living (?hiding) in a salt mine would generally generate something tense and foreboding. Sadly, it's absent here. Even the arrival of a black girl (!) would rock the apple cart but feels strangely anti-climatic.

The romance between her ('Girl') and George MacKay (' Boy') lacks chemistry and conviction.

At 2.5hrs it is too long and scenes go nowhere.

This outlandish premise may have been better helmed by Yorgos Lanthimos who would have injected much more humour and ' sickness'. In fact the weird characters reminded me of his own ' Dogtooth' .

The songs aren't that memorable and like ' Amelia Perez' would have been better suited by not featuring them at all. It doesn't add much depth to the characters situation.

Nonetheless, I admire Mr Oppenheimer's chutzpah in creating something different.

And he has got a decent supporting cast-it's great to see Lennie James, Tim McInnerny and Bronagher Gallagher all on screen for a change.

Not a film I loved but I liked and admired it.

Post apocalyptic movies are probably my favorite genre, and I love Michael Shannon and Tilda Swinton, so I was really looking forward to this movie. I also like musicals, but I did have my doubts about whether the two genres could mix.

Maybe they can, but not this time, because as a musical, it's *absolutely terrible*. The songs are so generic and bland that you forget them the minute they end. Seriously, I watched this last night and can't remember a single song. Michael Shannon does have a surprisingly good singing voice, but Tilda Swinton sounds pretty much exactly like you would expect Tilda Swinton to sound, and that's not good.

Setting the music aside, it's a pretty mediocre story. It's about a family and a few others living an "idyllic" life underground after some sort of never specified apocalypse. Things get shaken up when a newcomer arrives, and then.... well, not much happens. Certainly not enough to fill two and a half hours.

I'm glad I watched it on Hulu rather than wasting money at the theater.

Satire in a bunker and Singing musical? Okay I'm puzzled but intrigued. Nice environmental background (scenery).

At least one or two good actors (especially Tilda Swindon) however they all impersonate caricatures of snobs, helpers, working class...

It's not a sci fi. There is no back story, no depth, no reasoning and for some reason one didn't seem to even miss a meal after barely surviving something outside even if she sings well.

Without spoiling anything, in 3 hours you can expect something like theater with singing and discovering back stories that you probably could have written yourself for someone you hated (especially if you think the global warming should be purely blamed on a few rich people).

The end is maybe the best part of this movie.

Following a vaguely explained apocalypse, a married couple, their adult son and a tiny handful of servants have established a luxurious home in a salt mine, deliberately oblivious to whatever is happening in the world above. Under the controlling leadership of the patriarch (Michael Shannon) and his fearful wife (Tilda Swinton), they lead a comfortable existence. However, there are a multitude of relationship strains, past sins and guilt bubbling just below the surface. These all explode out into the open when a young woman somehow manages to find her way down into the mine. Her presence upsets the uneasy status quo that has sustained the sheltered "family" who have known no one but each other for at least two decades.

Much of the overlong film consists of monologues and the aftermaths as each character's house of lies is rawly exposed. While the stories and interpersonal tensions could be interesting, it's much too talky (maybe a better word is too verbal, since some of the monologues and conversations are sung, as if in a musical theater). Not much else happens, nor is the origin and sustainability of this outpost ever really explained - where does all the food and power come from? How did they acquire some of the world's great artwork to display on the walls of their elaborately furnished drawing rooms.

And why, oh why, did they bother with the musical numbers? If nothing else, they added to the film's excessive length. Tilda Swinton is a great actress, but she can't sing. Michael Shannon isn't much better at it. And neither makes any real effort to lip sync; though George MacCay as the son and Moses Ingram as the young woman do a decent job with the music.

In the end, it never really comes together well enough to fully explain who these people are and why they are the way they are. The film is visually stunning and expertly produced, but it's cold and unfulfilling - just as its characters are.

Ps. The streaming series Silo covers some of the same post-apocalypse territory, but does a far better job of portraying its underground isolation as a complete environment and society.

I only knew the premise of this film going in and felt perplexed as I exited the cinema. It took me a while to start processing what kind of story I have just been told. You can take many things from this. I will spare you any analysis but this film oddly lulled me into this hidden world with grey blue tones, anxious people, sumptuous decor and numerous paintings to, well, frame the story.

This was my second musical I have ever seen in the cinema and the first being Dancer In The Dark I think I have found pieces that accompany each other pretty well. I want to see this film again sometime and maybe do some rabbit hole research first so that I can spot the things I definitely missed first time.

Enjoy. It's a lovely film.