GenerationofSwine
January 10, 2023
6
So everyone is dead for unknown reasons save a guy who hangs out in the library. Now... where have we seen that before?
Anyway, they clearly spent their money on the cast. It is a small film, with a small cast, and a small budget but it is done exceptionally well given what it is, but there is some actual power behind it.
There are also a lot of miles to burn, and it's slow moving. However, it is a great story for the most part, until the end, where they had to do something to make for a climax and it veered away from the reclusive loneliness that was fine with the world ending...
...And that is where it probably lost a lot of people, but, again, they had to do something to make for an ending, otherwise it would dangle for an eternity, they just sort of made the wrong decision and broke up what the film felt like it was going to be about.
Otherwise it's a watchable and moody film.
I did enjoy <em>'I Think We’re Alone Now'</em> enough, but it does feel like they only scratched the surface of the plot.
There's a lot of build-up, but not much reward. I still got enough from it, but I can understand the seemingly lukewarm reaction to this 2018 release. Away from that, I knew I'd get a strong performance from Peter Dinklage and he didn't let me down. Elle Fanning, meanwhile, is solid behind/alongside him.
The film sets the ambience well throughout, especially at the beginning, and everything onscreen is shot pleasantly. I did find some of the music, albeit all good, out of place/overly loud in moments. Elsewhere, I personally found the run time to be finely chosen, I just think they could've utilized the 95 or so minutes better.
**_A little man and teenage blonde survive the apocalypse on the Hudson_**
This starts out like Charlton Heston’s “The Omega Man,” minus the nocturnal mutants, utilizing the basic plot of 1987’s “The Caller” with Malcolm McDowell and Madolyn Smith. The latter was an odd drama about a man and woman in an isolated setting with an unexpected and original climax. While the final act of this film isn’t as good as that one, it’s more compelling up to that point. There’s a realistic sense of what it would be like if 99.99% of the population mysteriously dropped dead, yet you find yourself still alive because you were immune to the cause of the extinction.
A couple of interesting bits surface in the glum setting: Del (Peter Dinklage) stays busy locating and burying the dead, as well as archiving the people, because he refuses to devolve into a state of purposeless entropy. Secondly, there’s the interesting idea of an attractive tall blonde (Elle Fanning) forced to get to know a male dwarf because there’s literally no one else available. Elle happened to be 19 years-old during shooting.
The final act isn’t as bad as critics say, if you think about it, although it could’ve been tweaked for better results. Also, don’t expect Tiffany’s 1987 pop song to show up.
Speaking of songs, I shouldn’t fail to add that two cuts from Rush’s 1974 debut album are a nice surprise on the soundtrack, “Working Man” and “Finding My Way.”
It runs 1h 39m and was shot in spring 2017 north of The Big Apple in Haverstraw and Hastings-on-Hudson, as well as Canyon View Estates in southwest Palm Springs, SoCal, for the last act.
GRADE: B
