Zoe Lister-Jones And A Starry Cast Seek Closure At The End Of The World
by Travis Hopson | Punch Drunk Critics
The calmest end-of-the-world catastrophe film you’re likely to find, Zoe Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein’s How it Ends follows in the same tragi-funny footsteps of Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. The long and short? It’s never too late for self-improvement and closure, even on the streets of Los Angeles on the final day before an asteroid is set to destroy the planet. Featuring a star-studded cast that Lister-Jones and Wein emptied the Rolodex to lure out of quarantine, the film takes some time to get going and meanders a bit, but proves an easy watch.
Lister-Jones co-directs, co-writes, and stars as Liza, who plans to spend her final night on Earth getting high all by her lonesome. She’s talked out of this notion by who we think is a roommate or kid sister (Cailee Spaeny), but turns out to be her younger self. She’s “metaphysical”, as we’re constantly reminded, and she’s not only full of energy but very opinionated. One of the film’s pleasures is the way Lister-Jones and Spaeny come to move and act more like one another as the story goes along.
On this final day, Liza’s younger self is pushing her out into the world to wrap up some loose ends. So this won’t be a time of panic, and actually, everybody seems to have just moved into the “acceptance” phase of this catastrophe, it will be a time of reconciliation with her inattentive father (Bradley Whitford), her wayward mother (Helen Hunt), an old friend she left behind (Olivia Wilde), and possibly the guy (Logan Marshall-Green) she loved who got away from her. She’ll have to hoof it through the city streets because, even at a time like this, car theft is still a thing.
While watching How it Ends I kept thinking back to the insane chaos of the recent disaster film, Greenland. This is basically its polar opposite. You’d be hard-pressed to know anything was happening at all. The L.A. chill is in full effect. A guy buys up the weed dispensary and is more than happy to share; a teacher performs her stand-up routine on the street corner, while a break-dancer decides today’s a good day to rock the old school boom box. There’s a certain amount of liberal privilege at play here, for sure, and Liza is definitely a part of that. Her concerns are minor, her hang-ups about not being able to “accept love” sound like something her therapist beat into her head.
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