Metacritic reviews

A mixture of domestic drama, apocalyptic fable and old-fashioned (and unironic) Hollywood musical, The End is an audacious and frequently enrapturing experience, with superb performances at its emotional heart.

There’s a thin line between kindness and complicity, and “The End” achieves its sneakily immense power by dancing all over it with an ambivalence that Oppenheimer’s previous work never allowed for.

The End carries that rare sense of a lack of compromise––a fully realized world from a visionary director. It’s exhilarating to simply exist in this world that Oppenheimer and his team (including co-writer Rasmus Heisterberg) craft.

In truth, the movie can be pretty ridiculous, too, with its wild ambition sometimes coming across as a little foolhardy. But overreaching might be the whole point of The End, which offers an end-times prescription for living: Hold the fantasy together as long as you can. And when in doubt, sing.

The End requires complete submission to the off-kilter rules that govern this family and to Oppenheimer’s ambitions to radicalize the musical genre. It’s an admirable if uneven endeavor.

What remains engaging throughout are the carefully textured performances—MacKay’s study of repressed energy and Ingram’s mix of wariness and gratitude are particular highlights—and the film’s myriad aesthetic graces.

Perhaps the script is deliberately harking back to a storytelling mode that was characteristic of Hollywood cinema for dramatic effect, but the musical aspect, while a neat gimmick, isn’t memorable or cohesive enough to make the homage, well, sing.

The End is a challenging film and the rewards may be minimal, but that it exists at all is a miracle itself.

There may never be another film like The End, and that alone makes it special, though surely all involved would prefer for it to be seen. As it is, the film feels like an obtuse missive, hidden in plain sight, just waiting for intrepid seekers to unearth it.

All that being said, the songs are impressive enough that it’s not hard to envision “The End” becoming something of a cult musical. Five years from now, maybe less, some excited college freshman is going to convince the head of their college drama department to let them put on a stage version of this musical. And chances are, it will be a smash. This is material that, with some editing of its book (er, script), a spotlight on the songs, and natural physical intimacy, could flourish on the stage.