When You Finish Saving the World

Another unimoprtant movie, a movie that had no reason to make it, let alone create the idea for this. What does the new director Eissenberg want to achieve? Convince us that he has concerns about the future of the planet? That he cares for the good of humanity? Want to scream for green growth? What happens to me? To irritate me with the chatter of his texts. Does he try to make the actors talk as fast as he does? Is it an experiment? Do you want to show us your deep talent? Don't make movies. Another family without cohesion. Characters indifferent. Result; Sleepiness! I like Julianne Moore and that was the reason for giving a try. Pity for Julianne, and pity for me.

This is usually my kind of film. A simplistic, low-budget drama that tells a human story. Many of those films are my favourites, so when I heard Jesse Eisenberg was tackling a movie like this for his first directorial feature I was intrigued. After watching it though, I have to admit I'm pretty disappointed. Not because Eisenberg is a bad filmmaker by any means, but due to the fact that I just didn't care about anything in this movie. Here's why, even though Eisenberg directs his first film well, you can probably avoid When You Finish Saving the World.

The film follows Evelyn (Julianne Moore) and her son Ziggy (Finn Wolfhard) as they live very different lives and don't get along. Ziggy makes money by playing music for an audience online and Evelyn is a teacher who's making friends with people her son's age in order to feel more accomplished. Ziggy tries to fit in with his classmates by pretending to be interested in what they're talking about, but this is a very mirky choice on his part. That's pretty much the entire movie in a nutshell honestly. A movie like this can work really well, but for me, what ruined it for me were the characters.

A film that revolves around characters where not much happens is fine if it's written well, and it's not that the film is poorly written, it's just that the focus was in the wrong place and the characters themselves were the most unlikable I've seen in a long time. I disliked Evelyn and Ziggy right when the film started, so I spent the entire film rooting for them to change. Without ruining where the film goes, I'll just say that I barely felt a progression of any kind for either of them. There are clear underlying themes present here too, especially to do with politics and the environment, but it all just felt like dialogue that was brushed over. I love these two performers, but I had much more attachment to the side characters, and that's a big problem.

Overall, When You Finish Saving the World proved to me that Jesse Eisenberg can handle directing a film and knows how to pull a good performance, so I will gladly watch his next effort. That said though, I just found this to be a mess. I normally find that a singular writer for a film is best, but I believe a second eye would've helped make this script much better and more interesting. Although quite and space, I would actually say the most impressive aspect of this film is the music from composer Emile Mosseri. I've liked his work on films like The Last Black Man in San Francisco and most recently in Stutz. It's hard to praise anything else though in my opinion. When You Finish Saving the World.

When You Finish Saving The World is more a drama than a comedy/drama. I didn't get the comedy in this movie if I have to be honest. Maybe it just wasn't my kind of humour. That said as a drama it's watchable. Not really my favourite genre of movies though so you could say a six stars rating for this one is pretty high considering the genre. It's all about two characters played by Finn Wolfhard and Julianne Moore. One struggling with what is important in life and another struggling in being a good mother instead of acheaving that at her job. The acting was okay, the story passable. It's easy to follow but not really interesting that I want to watch it again in the future.

Saw this back at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival

"When You Finish Saving the World" isn't the best A24 production but the movie is still engaging and fun due to the realistic nature between the characters portrayed by Julianne Moore and Finn Wolfhard and the captivating tone presented throughout. Eisenberg isn't an actor that I am incredibly invested in but he has played some really good movies over the past years in the 2010s decades of cinema. This movie displays that for an actor, his directing talents does shine quite a bit.

What makes the movie interesting is due to the characters and the engaging narrative Eisenberg presents. The characters are seen as mean, narcissistic and quite all over the place. I understand if people will be annoyed by this kind's of characters but the fact is that in real life, people can be different and mean. That's what makes it very nature and interesting. The production designs are very good, Wolfhard's singing is surprisingly pretty good and the tone is perfectly paced.

The problem is that sometimes the writing does feel flat because it is pretty predictable from the beginning to end at times. Secondly, certain dialogue spoken from the actors felt really off as if the words were written by some robot.

Overall, it is a pretty good debut despite it's flaws. It's definitely not for everyone but I recommend this if you are a lover of A24's projects.

Rating: B.

Hesitated between a 4-6 rating. Some stops of the film convey the gist of the story. Some are muddled, expected, and very naïve. Moore's pursuit of improving Kyle's life brushes off as a consequence to chasing off a romantic interest at some parts. Also, her performance is visibly dry at a lot of scenes. Glad to see how Finn has been shying away from Stranger Things shelter. However, his real-life personality has been shining through his acting since 2019 which requires a bit of improvement. A great performance from his end nonetheless. Maybe a bit of coherence to characters' purpose would have been better.