Review by Pamela Zoslov
Our hero is a mild-mannered New Jersey insurance salesman named
Dodge, played by Steve Carell. The cable news networks have an
onscreen counter ticking off the days till annihilation by an
asteroid destined to collide with the Earth (“21 Days Left”), and
people are either indulging in depravity or continuing to go about
their business. In one of the film's most amusing sequences,
management at Dodge's firm tries to interest the few lingering
employees to fill vacated positions. “If anyone wants to be Chief
Financial Officer....anyone?”
Dodge's unhappy wife walks out on him and, sensing the futility of
everything, he tries to relieve his loyal housemaid, Elsa, of her
duties. But everyone copes in her own way, the film seems to say, and
so Elsa carries on cheerfully as though nothing is wrong.
The film has a nicely judged sardonic tone. The new reality, in which
there is no future, means that a body might drop out of the sky and
shatter Dodge's windshield. His married friends (Connie Britton and
Rob Corddry) host a dinner party at which guests indulge in every
possible untried vice: orgies, heroin, even dynamite. Dancing on the
edge of a volcano, they drink, drug and screw like Christopher
Ishwerwood's debauched denizens of early-1930s Berlin. Dodge's friend
Roache (an amusing cameo by comedian Patton Oswalt) boozily urges him
to seize the moment by joining him in a threesome. Dodge prefers to
await the end in solitude, mooning over a picture of his long-lost
high school sweetheart. His seclusion is interrupted when his
calamitous young neighbor, Penny (Keira Knightley), climbs in his
window. She's in tears because she wants to get away from her
paranoid boyfriend and see her parents in England before the world
ends.
Dodge
and Penny's fates entwine, and as they hit the road with a Toto-like
dog in tow, SEEKING A FRIEND becomes
an eventful road movie with sweet, mournful overtones. Dodge hopes to
get Penny on a private plane to England, and Penny, who “dabbles”
at jobs and is obsessed with old vinyl LPs, tries to enable Dodge to
find his lost love. The journey becomes an exploration of the past
for the mismatched pair – Penny revisiting an erstwhile boyfriend
who now has a survivalist bunker and a plan to repopulate the Earth,
Dodge reconciling with an estranged parent. There are surprises along
the road, some gruesome (a doomed trucker who picks up the
hitchhiking pair) and others amusing (a chain restaurant called
Friendsies, where everyone is your friend and stoned out of his
mind).
The acting in this movie is just right. Carell plays Dodge with a
nice balance of anguish and resignation; Knightley, despite a
tendency to grimace unattractively in emotional scenes, is
appropriately charming.
Where
the road leads is not a mystery, but how the characters get there and
what they discover en route is exquisitely handled. The end of the
world can be depressing and nihilistic (see von Trier, Lars), or it
can be inspiring. Maybe it seems odd to say that a film about the end
of the world is inspiring. Can there be hope in a story in which
everyone is fated to die? Yes, of course. Because that is the story
of everyone who lives. 4 out of 4 stars.
Contact Pamela Zoslov at pzoslov@gmail.com
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