Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon are two of the most electric and electric and often eccentric actors in the world, so it comes as no surprise that when they teamed up for a project, it wouldn’t be something like a glossy HBO miniseries about a high-profile Malibu couple caught in a scandal, with a title like “All the Perfect Little Lies” or some such thing.
Not hardly. Swinton and Shannon head an outstanding ensemble that unfortunately gets swallowed up in the tedious and one-note slog that is “The End,” an underground bunker post-apocalyptic musical melodrama. You read that right: On occasion the characters break into song as if they’re in Rodgers and Hammerstein musical — if Rodgers and Hammerstein had suddenly lost about 90% of their talent. (It doesn’t help that nobody in the cast has musical theater-level singing chops. They’re adequate at best, and maybe that’s part of a joke I didn’t get.)
Directed by the skilled documentarian Joshua Oppenheimer (who co-wrote the screenplay with Rasmus Heisterberg), “The End” is set in the massive and sprawling yet somehow claustrophobic-feeling underground dwelling where a half-dozen people have been living for some two decades, after some sort of environmental cataclysm essentially ended civilization. Tilda Swinton is Mother, a rigid taskmaster who claims to have danced in the Bolshoi, Michael Shannon is Father and George MacKay is Son, who is about 20 and knows nothing of the world beyond the walls of this shelter. (This is the second movie in recent weeks, after “Nightbitch,” in which the main characters aren't assigned names.)
Following the teachings of Father, who is writing a self-serving memoir and was an energy company mogul who might have been a major contributor to the demise of the world, Son is getting one terribly skewed version of history. According to Father, it's debatable whether his fracking enterprises contributed in any way to the demise of civilization, and in fact, many considered him a hero. Yeah, sure Dad.
(The production design is quite brilliant, as we really feel as if we’re in an underground compound. You’ve heard about that 1,400-acre compound Mark Zuckerberg is building on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, complete with a 5,000-square-foot underground bunker? One imagines the bunker would look like this.)
Also living in the bunker: a personal doctor (Lennie James), a butler (Tim McInnerny), a maid (Danielle Ryan) and a dear old friend (Bronagh Gallagher). Everyone pretty much sticks to the roles they had before the end of the world, with Mother fussing about where to rearrange various pieces of priceless artwork (apparently this bunch saw the end of the world coming, and gathered up quite the collection of material possessions in advance), and the group periodically participating in survival drills, as if they’re expecting to be attacked any day now. (At one point we get a glimpse of the butler’s scars from a bullet wound as he references a violent conflict from the past.) They also make a point of celebrating holidays, though the merriment always seems forced and rather pointless.
Over the 148-minute running time, the characters occasionally break into song, with the cast delivering renditions that are achingly earnest, yet often below the standards of a solid community theater troupe. This isn’t so much a traditional musical drama a la “Wicked” as it is a turgid, heavy-handed and preachy melodrama interspersed with musical numbers that are serviceable but hardly memorable. (Oppenheimer wrote the lyrics, and composer Joshua Schmidt scored the songs.)
As is often the case with these dystopian bunker/shelter/fortress films and series, an unexpected visitor arrives, proving Mom and Dad and the gang aren’t the only ones who survived the apocalypse. Moses Ingram plays Girl, a young Black woman who is the only member of her family to survive; she found the bunker because smoke was billowing out, so I guess ol’ fracking Dad and company are STILL not the most environmentally friendly.
The arrival of Girl is the launching point for more finger-shaking social commentary, what with the privileged white Mother arguing against even letting Girl in, and voicing stern disapproval when Son takes a liking to Girl. (Hey, maybe there’s hope for the population to continue after all!) Still, even though Son and Girl (eesh with those non-names) might just be the last young people on the planet who can reproduce, their chemistry is mid-level at best.
By the time we finally reach the end of “The End," we’re thinking it’s a damn shame that these thinly drawn, self-involved caricatures were the ones who survived the apocalypse, while billions of presumably more interesting people were swept away.
