Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World

 How would spend your final moments on earth if you knew the world would be destroyed in three weeks? Would you try to right all the wrongs you created over the course of your life, or would you simply try to make the most out of the time you had left? These are the questions all of humanity faces when a last ditch effort to destroy a massive asteriod from hitting the planet fails.

Dodge Petersen (Steve Carell) is just your average insurance salesman who was just recently left by his wife when the whole end of the world scenario began. With only 21 days remaining before the end of days, Dodge sets out on a road trip with his eccentric neighbor Penny (Keira Knightley) to find his old high school sweetheart.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World opens with a heavy comedic tone as people essentially give in to everything they wanted to do but were afraid to beforehand. This means excessive partying, sex, drugs. People simply don’t care about anything anymore and finally give in to their desires. It’s actually quite funny to see so-called adults injecting themselves with heroin and partying without a care in the world.

Dodge, on the other hand, simply continues to go to work and live normally for whatever’s left of his life. That all changes when he encounters his neighbor Penny, who he’s never talked to before, despite living in the same apartment building for the past three years. Penny herself had just broken up with her boyfriend and regrets not spending more time with her family. After a riot breaks out at their apartment, the two decide to head out on the road together and find whatever it is they’re looking for.

At that point, the film takes a 180 and the humorous jokes take a backseat to make way for a more romantic drama about Dodge and Penny. It’s no secret that the two eventually fall for each other. That’s Romance 101. The journey in which this happens is what makes the film shine. Writer and director Lorene Scafaria creates a wonderful relationship between Dodge and Penny that’s a natural fit. You begin to realize that these two were meant for each other almost from the start.

Both Steve Carell and Keira Knightly give a commendable and convincing performance. Their relationship feels real and not just some end of the world hookup. As the film goes on, you begin to actually forget that the world is ending in just a few short days. That is, until the occasional run-in with a guy who hired a hitman to kill himself or the Friendly’s restaurant that takes the definition of friendly to a whole new level.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is one of those cute films that will find you smiling at random moments. It doesn’t go overboard with the comedy and actually makes you think about what you would do yourself if the world was ending.

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