In a year that has rendered many apocalypse movies (in addition to zombie ones) freshly relevant, Lorene Scafaria’s directorial debut (after writing the script for Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist) was released at a moment in time that everyone liked to speculate was “the end”: 2012. Thus, it was fittingly entitled Seeking A Friend For the End of the World and centered on the imminent arrival of an asteroid (seventy miles wide and called Matilda) headed straight for Earth. The news of this unavoidable fate is delivered on the radio to our protagonist, Dodge Petersen (Steve Carell), as he sits in the car with his very overt cold fish of a wife, Linda (played by Carell’s own wife, Nancy). In response, Dodge lamely offers, “I think we missed the exit,” sending Linda running out of the car with lightning speed. Like most others, she refuses to waste another second of her life doing something she doesn’t want to. Tragically, the threat of the end of the world is what it takes to get people to behave this way in their lives.
In any case, the last thing she wants to do is spend another moment with Dodge. Boring, drab insurance salesman Dodge, who, for some reason, keeps going to work as the days go by–a symptom of that common phenomenon most Americans experience: not being able to fathom what to do with themselves if they’re not mindlessly working to pass the hours. Yet even his co-worker has to solemnly admit as they sit through another meeting (one in which the position of CFO has become available), “Life has no meaning.” Dodge starts to feel the same way upon returning to an empty apartment, with no one to share the end of his days with–the “final act” serving to underscore for everyone the point of whether they’re alone or not. For this is what it always boils down to when the veneers of “polite society” are stripped away and one is left with the bare minimum: does somebody love you, or not?
As the date of The End looms large, there’s but one anchorman named Bob (Mark Moses) still willing to go on the airwaves and report the news, much like the items we’ve gotten over the past few months, such as, “Well, it’s no longer just the postal service. Commercial airlines have discontinued altogether today. After much delay, the final flight, piloted by Delta Airlines, left Chicago Midway at 3:45 Central Time, touching down in Seattle at 6:15 Pacific. Private charters have been given military clearance to use intercontinental airspace at their own risk [which is just what rich people/celebrities have been able to do].” Doing his best to fight the good fight and keep reporting until it’s all over, he then says, “And now the traffic report. Amy?” The camera cuts to a disgruntled Amy, who chirpily responds, “We’re fucked, Bob!”
Alas, there is a surprising majority that wishes to deny this right up to the end, along with the fact that even as Earth reaches its point of all-out cataclysm, the rich still have some kind of exit strategy thanks to their wealth, as mentioned by Bob with the line, “…they have yet to make a statement regarding rumors of a classified space launch for high-ranking government officials, religious figureheads, and important contributors to athletics and entertainment.” And yeah, that’s def gon happen when the shit hits the fan and there’s no toilet paper supply left to clean it.
As Dodge wanders about the planet like the Mobro 4000 with no one to “dock at,” going to a party at his friend Warren’s (Rob Corddry) intensifies the matter as Warren’s wife, Diane (Connie Britton), tries to set him up with someone. Warren scolds, “Leave him alone,” to which Diane reminds, “He is alone, look at him.” Dodge interjects, “I’m fine.” Diane insists, “No, honey, you’re not fine. You’re gonna die alone. Doesn’t that bother you?” Warren eye rollingly points out, “He’s not gonna die alone. He’s gonna die with everybody else! There’s just no need to cling to who’s closest. This isn’t the fucking Ark, Diane. This is the Titanic! And there is not a life raft in sight.” Lately, the same sentiment seems to be echoing through people’s minds as they watch the global economy deteriorate amid a sickly worldwide population that’s overflowing hospitals. The only life rafts, of course, are still reserved for the rich.
Dodge, though your garden variety “middle class” type (which is kind of code for “rich” nowadays), at least has a cleaning woman to commune with. Elsa (Tonita Castro), hopelessly in denial as she doesn’t get his message that she might as well stop coming at this point. She says she’ll see him next week. Surrendering to her denial and the false sense of purpose she finds in work, Dodge shouts simply, “I regret my entire life!” His uncensored expression exposes the fast-opening would of a vast majority. For who among the us can say they haven’t squandered most of their “best years”?
“Time well spent is doing something you love,” they say (sex addicts might replace “thing” with “one”). But how many people even have the luxury of figuring out what that is when the entire setup of society is designed to keep you not thinking? To busy you with trivialities that will fill your time (therefore your living space, thanks to the money you’ve made to buy more shit), but not your mind. And then there is the fact that during all those hours pissed away at a banal job, Dodge was also misappropriating his love to the wrong person (never trust a bitch named Linda, that’s something The Wedding Singer taught us long ago). Hence, being in the predicament he is now: a state of complete and utter aloneness. For, indeed, Seeking A Friend For the End of the World’s entire thesis is to accent the idea that when everything comes crashing down, what you have or what you’ve done won’t matter, but who you’re with when it happens.
Enter Penny (Keira Knightley), Dodge’s neighbor of three years who he hasn’t once spoken to until he sees her crying on his fire escape. Moved by her pain, he invites her to come in. She agrees to the offer if he promises not to rape her. He says sure and soon the two are on his couch, Penny taking a sip of his codeine-laced cough syrup without really asking permission and then curling up to smoke her joint. Their shared sense of familiarity is almost instant, for Penny just has that way about her in her role as a manic pixie dream girl (but at least she’s being written by a woman instead of a man). Soon, she’s telling him about her latest (and final) failed relationship with deadbeat musician Owen (Adam Brody, always well cast in this type of role) and how sticking around too long with him resulted in her missing her last chance to get on a plane that would take her back to England to be with her family. She also mentions her superhuman ability to sleep through just about anything (a detail, of course, that will prove to be useful later on in the narrative).
Penny puts this character trait to use as she sleeps through the sound of loud rioting on the streets in the days to come, prompting Dodge to burst through her apartment and wake her up, much to Owen’s dismay. Owen, who they end up ditching when Dodge mentions he might know someone who can fly her to England. So they’re off in her car, though not for very long. Being a manic pixie dream girl, she’s too manic to remember things like filling the car up with enough gas. Dodge, who is on this journey for his own purpose of trying to seek out Olivia, the love of his life/former high school sweetheart, finally loses his patience with Penny, accusing her of ruining his life after she “forgot” to give him most of his wrongly delivered mail for the past three years, one piece of which was from Olivia three months ago, telling him that he had been the love of her life.
Emotional as she tends to be, she breaks down crying and vows to help him find Olivia before world’s end. Dodge now feels compunctious for having spoken so harshly toward her. After all, she’s all he’s got. And all she’s got is a John Cale record she grabbed hastily before absconding from the apartment (again, the phrase manic pixie dream girl cannot be used enough). So it is that they traipse through the state lines between New Jersey and Delaware, sometimes on foot, sometimes in a stolen or borrowed car, trying to do their best to make some final meaning of it all (because yes, chaos has become as invigorating as cocaine at this juncture).
In the end, of course, it all boils down to the cliche that classic literature always taught us (though it’s a cliche that’s of late fallen out of fashion in the twenty-first century): love–romantic love–is what makes one’s life seem slightly less lacking in definition when the grand denouement arrives. With this film, Scafaria, who would later go on to direct last year’s hit, Hustlers (you know back when movies weren’t making literally zero dollars at the box office), struck a tone that she never could seem to again (though it’s always been evident the musical choices in Scafaria’s films are of the utmost importance to her). One that echoes back just how fragile humankind is, especially when it comes to everyone’s greatest fear: the notion of dying alone.
