The latest “what if we made a metaphor literal” movie tackles the oft-sung refrain “life is a highway.” Don’t worry: It Ends realizes that the road trip of sentient modern human existence is, in fact, an abject nightmare for which there is no working GPS. Writer/director Alexander Ullom’s tight, thoughtful, disquieting drive into existential despair does an excellent job of making individual panic tangible and shouting “This sucks, right?”
What sucks here is that Tyler (Mitchell Cole), Day (Akira Jackson), Fisher (Noah Toth), and James (Phinehas Yoon) find themselves on an endless road from which they cannot deviate. Their car will not run out of gas. Their cell phones can charge from the car. They no longer hunger or experience any other bodily functions or problems that would present logistical narrative challenges.
There is, however, a challenge that keeps them driving. Whenever they stop, after about 90 seconds, a mob of wild and screaming strangers run after them and attempt to rip them from the car. They can stretch their legs and do some minor investigations into their immediate surroundings, but that’s about it. Otherwise, they are trapped with just each other and without any explicit purpose or way out.
It doesn’t take a sophisticated viewer to crack the code here. A bunch of Gen Z-ers are stuck on a hopeless, never-ending road that they didn’t choose, from which they cannot deviate, and on which there seems to be absolutely no possibility of meaning. They struggle to find comfort even with each other. Tyler immediately wants to opt out of what is essentially limitless torture. Day and Fisher try to build a nonsensical routine to simulate meaning and sooth themselves. James refuses to accept that there isn’t an ultimate goal. It’s all futile.
Ullom doesn’t coddle or comfort. In an odd way, It Ends feels like a rebuke of the equally surreal but more delightful Everything Everywhere All at Once, which was admittedly made by filmmakers of a different generation. The latter film offers an embrace of a warm form of nihilism through interpersonal relationships. It Ends bleakly suggests that even getting on the same page as your lifelong friends probably won’t be possible.
Pithy jokes about how “the kids are not alright” are common and acknowledge what young people have ahead of them with a shrug. It Ends kind of feels like a scream. I take that back; it is a scream. They scream. They literally dedicate part of their time to just screaming. In the same way that Backrooms felt like an intergenerational condemnation, this film feels like an honest attempt to reveal the terror that older folks are too casually dismissing in younger folks.
It is not fun! But it is also essential to acknowledge. It comes across as one of the most honest accounts of the current state of affairs for a generation that is being neglected if not forgotten. It is too much to ask anyone involved with the film for recommendations on how to respond or what should come next. The best we can do is answer the question with “Yes. Yes, this sucks.”
Grade = A-
Other Critical Voices to Consider
Kristy Puchko at Mashable says “What if, It Ends asks, the people you depend on the most can’t save you from the future? What if the control we imagined we had as kids to choose our vocation and so our destiny were a total fiction? What if the title is a lie, and there is no end? What if the meaning of our lives is not one we can answer, no matter how long the road?”
Lyra Hale at Fangirlish says “it’s not exactly what I want from my movies. Living is hard. I don’t need more crises in my life. But what It Ends does really well is making me take pause, look at what I’m doing with my life, and focus on what matters to me. Not what matters to someone else, not what society expects of me, and not what my family wants. Just me.”
Nicolás Delgadillo at Knotfest says “Ullom’s thrilling microbudget debut is deeply reflective, occasionally hilarious, and genuinely terrifying. But most importantly, it understands that sometimes the scariest thing imaginable isn’t death. It’s the possibility of living forever without knowing why you’re moving forward.”