“The End” (2024) Review

Director Joshua Oppenheimer had crafted two of the most important documentaries of the 2010s, The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence, both films centering on the Indonesian genocide of the 1960s. So, it’s rather surprising that his next film is the apocalyptic musical, The End. If his past films were all about finding the inhumanity of this world, this offbeat narrative is perhaps trying to reestablish a human connection as the world decays. That grand ambition of revealing human nature via musicals, however, seems to get lost in the chorus, where the spectacle of the experiment overtakes everything else.

The film offers some surprises in how it favors more complex characters in a scenario where they could be cartoonish puppets for satire. Civilization has crumbled, and wealthy families have safely secured themselves in a spacious, lush underground bunker. Tilda Swinton is the matriarch obsessed with her art, but trying to keep the bitter past at bay. Michael Shannon is the husband and father who tries to maintain some order but denies the wrongdoings of his efforts that led to the collapse of society. His son (George MacKay) is hanging on his words, learning a distorted version of history that only homeschooling could muster. Other occupants of the bunker include a chef, played by Bronagh Gallagher, a butler, played by Tim McInnerny, and a doctor, played by Lennie James, all of them harboring pains of the old world that linger.

Throwing off this delicate balance of day-to-day underground life is the arrival of a girl played by Moses Ingram. Compassion becomes a motivating factor in allowing her to stay, as the son grows fonder of her presence. The civility never fully collapses with this new addition, despite how often Ingram’s character corrects the distorted historical facts fed to the son. Tensions do rise as old wounds are dug up, but that rage seems to plateau upon a certain unspoken nihilism of the situation. What is left to change in the hearts of man when the world is set on fire? What makes life worth living? Ultimately, the film seems to arrive early on the sentiment that the bonds we form matter most.

That realization is conveyed through the many songs of this film, presented with a gentle and operatic quality by Joshua Schmidt and Marius de Vries. The ensemble will casually progress into musical numbers of lingering regret and longing for love. While some darkness breeds as these quietly sordid characters are haunted by the past and uncertain of their dreams, the overall tone presents pity for humanity’s struggle to survive. The musical numbers exist almost like coping mechanisms, drawing my mind to the quote by Blaise Pascal: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” But don’t expect something that deep from this meandering musical, more interested in the lyrics for its apocalyptic contemplations than an existential dread that extends beyond a kitchen-sink drama.

The End does try to evoke a more significant consideration for humanity but gets lost in its musical staging, more admiring for the swing than the hit. There was a point in the film when I stopped watching with allure for the apocalyptic theme and more for the theatrics of the cast performing various musical numbers with an illuminating orchestra backing them. While such a mindset might be fine for most musicals, it feels like a downgrade from a director so accomplished. Joshua Oppenheimer is much akin to Michael Moore, where his documentaries like Roger & Me were strong pieces of documentary filmmaking, but his narrative Canadian Bacon was a lackluster movie. Oppenheimer’s ambitious swing toward musical is not as misguided, but it does seem to falter in finding the right words, repeating melodies like a singer who has forgotten most of the lyrics.