Looking for a friend for the end of the world

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Movie
German title Looking for a friend for the end of the world
Original title Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2012
length 101 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Lorene Scafaria
script Lorene Scafaria
production Steve Golin ,
Joy Gorman ,
Mark Roybal ,
Steven Rales
music Jonathan Sadoff ,
Rob Simonsen
camera Tim Orr
cut Zene Baker
occupation

Dodge's friends

Friendsy's employee

In search of a friend for the end of the world (original title Seeking a Friend for the End of the World ) is an American film from 2012 . The film was released in US cinemas on June 22, 2012 and opened in Germany on September 20, 2012.

action

The near-earth asteroid Matilda is on a collision course with the earth . Radio messages tell people that last attempts by planetary defense to save the earth have failed. The impact of the Global Killers will occur in three weeks and the world's population extinguish.

Dodge Petersen and his wife Linda hear the news in their car on the side of the road. Linda leaves the car without saying a word and runs away.

The next day, Dodge is one of the few colleagues to return to work at an insurance company. The people around him react completely differently to the impending apocalypse . Some are drugged or have unrestrained unprotected sex . Dodge returns to his house after work, where he finds his cleaning lady Elsa cleaning up his apartment as if nothing had happened. He tries to explain to her that this is no longer necessary and that she can go home. Elsa thinks Dodge is about to fire her, so he tells her to go back to work.

After a party, Dodge reminisces in his apartment in old memories of his high school sweetheart Olivia and his family. He plays a few notes on the harmonica that his father gave him many years ago. He discovers his neighbor Penny Lockhart crying on the fire escape in front of his window. She has just ended the relationship with her boyfriend Owen because she missed the last chance to meet her family because of him. He later accompanies her to her apartment, where she hands him dozens of pieces of mail that were wrongly delivered and which she later simply forgot. Then she asks him for a "friend" of his wife Linda, which Dodge finds out about his wife Linda's affair with another man.

Dodge is furious and wants to take his own life with cleaning products. The attempt fails and Dodge wakes up in the park the next morning. A dog is tied to his leg, the owner of which only apologizes to him with a brief "sorry". Dodge takes care of the animal and calls the dog "Sorry" from now on. Back home, he opens the mail Penny gave him. Below is a letter from Olivia. She later regretted separating from Dodge and wrote him that he was the love of her life. Meanwhile, riots rise in the streets of the city. After the mob threw the first stones into Dodge's window, he and the dog flee. Before that he wants to warn Penny. In her apartment, however, he meets Owen, who thinks he is a lover of Penny. Dodge promises to take her to a pilot on a private plane so that she can see her family again. Before that, however, she is supposed to help Dodge find Olivia. Penny and Dodge leave Owen in the streets and escape the mob in Penny's car.

After running out of gas, Dodge and Penny walk a deserted road with Sorry. Dodge is angry with Penny and accuses her of having forgotten the letters to prevent his last chance to meet his great love Olivia. Feeling guilty, Penny tries to stop cars passing by. A friendly trucker finally stops and picks them up. During a stopover, the trucker suddenly asks Dodge how he is going to kill him. He thinks Dodge and Penny are the killers he hired to kill himself before the end of the world . While the conversation was still going on, the trucker was shot dead by one of the hired snipers. Penny and Dodge bury the trucker and drive on. At Friendsys - “Where Everyone's Your Friend” - Penny pretends they're there to celebrate Dodge's birthday. The "friendly" waitresses kiss Penny and Dodge wildly. However, both leave the restaurant before an orgy breaks out. In the car they kiss and sleep together. Back on the road, Penny is driving too fast. A police officer stops both of them and arrests them for this small offense, despite the impending end of the world. However, the local sheriff releases her shortly afterwards and even drives her to Camden.

There they both meet Penny's ex-boyfriend Speck. The former soldier and his friends prepared for the end of the world in an air raid shelter equipped with weapons and food. Penny can use a satellite phone to talk to her family on the phone. Meanwhile, Speck lets Dodge know that Penny has a better chance of survival with him in the bunker and should stay here. Penny convinces Bacon to lend them a car that Penny and Dodge take to Olivia's apartment. Dodge goes to the door and leaves Penny in the car, disappointed. However, he soon returns and tells her that he has only left a note on the door. Despite Penny's inquiries, he gives no explanation for his behavior and so they leave Camden without having seen Olivia.

Soon you will see people walking to a beach. You join them. On the beach they kiss and confess their love to each other. Then they drive to Somerset County, where Dodge wants to visit a certain Frank, who is surprised and pleased to see Dodge again. Penny quickly realizes that Frank is Dodge's father and that they haven't seen each other for almost 25 years. They spend the rest of the day together. After Penny falls asleep, Dodge takes her outside, where his father is already waiting on a plane. He whispers to the sleeping woman that she is the love of his life and slips her the harmonica before his father takes off the plane.

Dodge returns home with Sorry, where he finds Elsa again. After an argument, he tells her to leave for good. When he switched on the television, he learned that the asteroid will hit the earth earlier than expected, in 16 hours. He goes to Penny's apartment with Sorry and listens to her records there until the power goes out. Suddenly Penny is in the room. She asked his father to turn around and take her home. Both spend the last few hours together. As they lie in bed together, they hear the asteroid entering the Earth's atmosphere. Penny thought they could have saved each other, but Dodge assures her they did just that. Bright light floods into the apartment.

Reviews

The film received average reviews. According to Rotten Tomatoes , the film received a positive rating from 55% of the critics. The film is “delicate, charming and well played”, but suffers from “changes in tonality and a disappointing final act”.

“A mixture of doomsday film and feel-good movie, in which the tragedy of the situation consistently turns comic before the absurd comedy turns into an unrestrained romance. The evocation of love as the only power that defies the horror of death works mainly thanks to the nuanced actors. "

- Lexicon of international film

In 'In Search of a Friend for the End of the World', debut director Lorene Scafaria now faces the end of days. She decides on a contemplative, conciliatory approach and faces the catastrophe with humor. In doing so, she succeeds in amazing things, because with her stylishly staged romantic and serious comedy, she makes the end of the world a beautiful experience. "

- movie starts

“Despite the not necessarily carefree starting position, there is unexpectedly a lot to laugh and smile about. Above all, an outstanding Steve Carell in the role of the well-behaved, much too long adapted everyone quickly brings the audience to his side. Scafaria draws us through him in her warm-hearted, quiet and at the same time extremely engaging film, which works pretty well, not least as a comedy. In addition, there are the many small ideas with which she dresses her unusual travel story and for which 'On the Search ...' is fondly remembered. "

- Programmkino.de

“In order to drive this bourgeois boredom out, the apocalypse is needed: Steve Carrell finds a partner for the catastrophe in 'In Search of a Friend for the End of the World' with Keira Knightley as the indie girlie. Who should believe that? We are not!"

- Spiegel Online

“The radicality with which the staging changes its tone halfway through and turns from an absurd comedy to an unrestrained romance is otherwise only known from Indian cinema. It's not that easy to make this blatant change - especially because you would like to enjoy the joke at the beginning for longer. That this succeeds anyway and that the old evocation of love as the only power that can defy the horror of death works, is not least due to the lead actor Steve Carell: He plays so touching that the sheer compassion of the apotheosis of the love of the wandering Keira Knightley heartily indulges; especially since his quiet playing subtly balances the exuberance of emotions to which the staging in the finale pays homage. At least the film provides proof that the genres “Doomsday film” and “Feel-Good-Movie” do not have to be categorically mutually exclusive. "

- Felicitas Kleiner , film service 2012/19

Trivia

The title of the film was inspired by the song Preaching the End of the World from Chris Cornell's album Euphoria Morning (1999).

When she escapes from her apartment, Penny takes a stack of LPs with her. As the film progresses, some of the album covers are recognizable, including:

Linda, the wife of Dodge, is played by Nancy Carell, the wife of Dodge actor Steve Carell. His great love Olivia, who can only be seen in photos, is in fact the screenwriter Lorene Scafaria. The starting position “An unexpected romance germinates while the protagonists go on a spontaneous road trip” coincides with that of the film Nick and Norah - Soundtrack of a Night (2008), whose screenplay was also written by them.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for In Search of a Friend for the End of the World . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , August 2012 (PDF; test number: 133 583 K).
  2. ↑ Seeking a Friend for the End of the World at Rotten Tomatoes, accessed June 28, 2018
  3. ↑ Looking for a friend for the end of the world. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ↑ Looking for a friend for the end of the world at filmstarts.de, accessed on September 8, 2012
  5. ↑ Looking for a friend for the end of the world at Programmkino.de, accessed on September 8, 2012
  6. ↑ Lisa Goldmann: Apocalyptic Comedy: Don't panic, it's just the end of the world. Spiegel Online, accessed September 20, 2012 .
  7. ↑ Mark Jenkins: For 'End of the World' writer / director Lorene Scafaria, music is key . In: The Washington Post, June 21, 2012