Best known for his groundbreaking documentary, The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer makes his fiction feature debut with The End. It’s a story about what seems to be the last remaining human family on earth, as they hide in an ornate bunker built deep inside a salt mine after environmental collapse has destroyed society. Oh, and it’s also a somber musical.
George MacKay plays the naive young man who was born in this bunker. In his 20 years of life, he has only heard stories of the outside world. He spends his days working on a dubious book with his father (Michael Shannon), a former energy tycoon, while his mother (Tilda Swinton) over the upkeep of the many priceless paintings and artworks adorning their walls. It’s the semblance of a normal (albeit affluent) life. But when a woman (Moses Ingram) from the outside arrives at their doorstep seeking refuge, the family’s delicate dynamic begins to crumble.
The End is markedly different from other end-of-days stories. Not only does it offer characters who are haunted by the guilt of their role in it, but it also shows how easy it is to become part of a cloistered family if we’re too afraid to confront the real world. In between their weighty conversations, the mother, father, son, and woman all sing. And much like in Oppenheimer’s previous work, music is used here as a way to ward off the horror of these characters’ pasts while perpetuating the denial they continue to live in.