Everest

For F*** Magazine

EVEREST

Director : Baltasar Kormákur

Cast : Jason Clarke, Jake Gyllenhaal, John Hawkes, Josh Brolin, Keira Knightley, Robin Wright, Sam Worthington, Emily Watson, Martin Henderson

Genre : Adventure/Thriller

Run Time : 122 mins

Opens : 24 September 2015

Rating : PG (Some Intense Sequences)

There is a Chinese proverb that warns of the dangers of the oceans, which roughly translates to “bully the mountain but never bully the water”. It turns out that mountains aren’t to be trifled with either. It is 1996 and Rob Hall (Clarke), founder of expedition guide agency Adventure Consultants, is leading a group of climbers up Mount Everest. His clients for this season include Doug Hansen (Hawkes), a mailman who has made two failed attempts to ascend Everest; Beck Weathers (Brolin), a Texan doctor; Yasuko Namba (Naoko Mori), a Japanese woman who has climbed six of the world’s seven tallest peaks and is hoping to complete that list by reaching the top of Everest; and journalist Jon Krakauer (Kelly). Rob’s wife Jan (Knightley) is pregnant with their first child and is awaiting his safe return. It is a crowded climbing season at Everest base camp, with expeditions from various countries and Scott Fischer (Gyllenhaal), founder of the rival expedition agency Mountain Madness, also with their eyes on the prize. When disaster strikes at the roof of the world, every last ounce of determination and endurance will be required to stay alive in the most inhospitable of conditions. 

The 1996 Mount Everest disaster is a well-documented tragedy, covered by multiple books, documentaries and a TV movie. Jon Krakauer’s book Into Thin Air is probably the best-known account, though some have called the veracity of his version of events into question. The poster claims Everest is “the most dangerous place on earth”, though mountains like Annapurna, K2 and the Eiger have claimed a larger ratio of lives. Still, that’s not to diminish the obvious risk inherent in climbing Everest. Director Baltasar Kormákur is clearly striving for a depiction that is as accurate, objective and respectful as possible, lending the movie the vibe of a National Geographic docu-drama re-enactment, but with a much larger budget and better actors. Movies allow audiences a glimpse into worlds they would never step into otherwise, and Everest achieves a sufficient degree of authenticity, thanks to location shooting in Italy’s Ötztal Alps, Iceland and Nepal itself. This is a film that was made for the IMAX 3D format and while there is an actual IMAX 3D Everest documentary, this film offers a more immersive and thrilling experience because of its narrative. 

The movie makes it crystal clear that ascending Mount Everest is a behemoth undertaking, involving training and acclimatisation, complex logistics, the harshest of elements and coming at a high monetary cost as well. The screenplay, credited to Simon Beaufoy and William Nicholson, tidily explains the rules and technicalities in layman’s terms while not dropping exposition into the audience’s lap wholesale. The film, via Michael Kelly’s portrayal of Krakauer, directly addresses the question most viewers would have on their minds – “why climb Everest at all?” The famous words of pioneering mountaineer George Mallory, “because it’s there”, are invoked, but the answer – if there is a singular one - seems far more ineffable and we are able to see just how much conquering the famous peak means to the various people in the story. 

Everest boasts an impressive cast by any standards, so there is the danger of it becoming “famous people on a mountain” and losing the verisimilitude of the true story. Thankfully, this is largely averted. Jason Clarke is excellent, portraying Rob Hall as diligent and attentive, while also aiming to turn a profit/make a living. Josh Brolin’s rugged charm is on full display, but it is John Hawkes who turns out to be the emotional core of the film. Hawkes’ portrayal of Doug, whose passion for mountaineering has rendered him near-penniless and has driven a wedge in his relationship with his wife and family, is quietly, painfully sympathetic. Jake Gyllenhaal’s Scott Fischer is the laid-back, free-spirited counterpoint to the by-the-book Rob, and the film benefits from never sensationalising the rivalry to cartoony proportions. 

We do wish Naoko Mori’s Yasuko Namba got more screen time – this is a woman who has successfully conquered six of the seven tallest mountains in the world by the age of 47, and is clearly a fascinating person. However, we concede that giving everyone their moment to shine in an ensemble picture is tricky, let alone when set against the staggering backdrop of a mountaineering disaster. The film also falls back on the “anxious wife back home” cliché, with Keira Knightley and Robin Wright as Rob’s wife Jan and Beck’s wife Peach respectively. The fact that Jan was pregnant at the time might come off as emotionally manipulative – but then again, that is what actually took place and while it’s a formula we’ve seen many times before, we can’t think of a viable alternative to portray what the climbers’ families were going through. 

While there is not a huge amount of room to establish the climbers as fully-developed characters, they are several notches up from being faceless victims and it easy to get invested in their plight. There are certain points where it might be difficult to tell the characters apart, since they are all clad in heavy-duty winter gear, are wearing goggles and mostly bearded. 

Many films are pitched as “celebrating the triumph of the human spirit”. There is an element of that in Everest, to be sure, but it is tempered with the idea of Mother Nature as a harsh mistress. As the line in the film goes, “the last word always belongs to the mountain.” There’s no sugar-coating, no manufactured “Hollywood ending”, with the conclusion bittersweet in that it’s 80% bitter and 20% sweet. Everest gets off to a slow start and because the tragedy it’s based on was so well-publicised, many viewers will know how it ends, but this is a journey that is largely worth the while. 

Summary: A respectful, credible account of the 1996 Everest disaster that overcomes the bits of survival drama formula it must include with some terrific performances and harrowing spectacle. 

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

The Imitation Game

For F*** Magazine

THE IMITATION GAME

Director : Morten Tyldum

Cast : Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Mark Strong, Matthew Goode, Charles Dance, Allen Leech, Vanessa Kirby, Rory Kinnear, Matthew Beard

Genre : Thriller/Drama

Run Time : 114 mins

Opens : 22 January 2015

Rating : NC16 

Alan Turing: mathematician, cryptanalyst, often considered the father of modern computing and a unique war hero who was persecuted later in his life. The man is as fascinating and compelling a biopic subject as they come. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Turing, the story shifting between three pivotal periods of Turing’s life: his school days, his secret wartime code-breaking work at Bletchley Park and his post-war conviction of gross indecency. Much more at home with puzzles and ciphers than in social settings, Turing’s co-workers at Bletchley Park’s Hut 8, particularly chess champion Hugh Alexander (Goode), find him insufferable. As the Second World War rages on, Commander Alastair Denniston (Dance) breathes down Turing’s neck for results. Turing goes about developing a machine with the goal of deciphering German messages encoded with the Enigma Machine – a task deemed impossible.

            The Imitation Game is based on Alan Hodges’ biography Alan Turing: The Enigma. Graham Moore’s screenplay landed at the top of the Black List, an annual survey of the most-liked unproduced scripts in Hollywood, in 2011. The title The Imitation Game refers to the Turing test, which determines how well a machine can imitate the thought processes of a human being. At face value, this looks entirely like an Oscar-bait biopic carefully engineered for maximum Academy voter appeal. Despite its Norwegian director Morten Tyldum and American screenwriter Moore, it does seem very British indeed, and if there’s anything the Academy loves, it’s British-y biopics built around an attention-grabbing tour de force performance – see The King’s Speech’s triumph over The Social Network at the 83^rd Academy Awards. We reckon it is possible to go into the film harbouring all these cynical pre-conceived notions and to walk out of the theatre afterwards unmoved, but one would have to be a special brand of jaded to do so.

            The standard biopic tropes we’ve come to expect of awards-contender “based on a true story” prestige pictures are all there, but The Imitation Game handily transcends them, never letting up in just how absorbing it is. Naturally, this is due in no small part to Benedict Cumberbatch’s portrayal of Turing. Cumberbatch has captured the world’s imagination and is that rare combination of a superstar, a “serious actor”, a geek icon and, as he is probably tired of being described as, an unlikely sex symbol. We’ve become accustomed to “eccentric geniuses” in various media, the smartest people in the room who don’t suffer fools and have unorthodox but highly effective methods of solving problems – Cumberbatch’s take on Sherlock Holmes could definitely be classified as such. There have also been various explorations of the “dark side” of genius, the inner demons that misunderstood prodigies grapple with. As Alan Turing, Cumberbatch is able to paint a highly sympathetic portrait of a man who, if he were “normal”, would not have accomplished what he had. When audiences question the veracity of a biopic, it is often brought about as much by the shortcomings of the actor as by the script’s fictionalisation of real events. This reviewer did not detect that here. To dismiss Cumberbatch’s Turing as “just another troubled wunderkind who can’t make personal connections” would be a great disservice.

            While the film was in production, there was the worry that Turing’s homosexuality would not be mentioned. Thankfully, it is addressed, and as such Keira Knightley’s Joan Clarke is far from the superfluous love interest she could have been depicted as if such liberties were taken with the source material. Joan has to battle the deep-seated misogyny of the time, never mind that she has repeatedly proven herself as an expert code-breaker. The character’s introductory scene when she is almost turned away from an entrance test because it is automatically assumed she is up for a clerical position is dynamite. Knightley and Cumberbatch play off each other in a manner that steers clear of being cloying or saccharine and the relationship between Turing and Joan is a well-developed one.

            A surprising element of The Imitation Game, given its often heavy subject matter and wartime setting, is its humour. There are plenty of well-judged moments of levity, most derived from Turing’s interactions with others without feeling like they are at the man’s expense. As Hugh Alexander, Turing’s fellow code-breaker whose frustration is often justifiable, Matthew Goode is appealing and comes off more likeably caddish than smarmy. Charles Dance is also funny as the irascible Commander Denniston and Mark Strong is believable and coolly charming as spymaster Maj. Gen. Stewart Menzies.

            If there’s any particular weakness, it would be the quality of the computer-generated imagery used to depict the WWII battles in brief cutaways. However, this deficiency barely registers because of how expertly the film is put together on the whole, the story flowing naturally through those three time periods in Alan Turing’s life. It seems there’s the danger of the film being written off by some, ironically enough, for its pedigree and awards potential. Ignore those voices; see this, tell everyone you know to see it. It’s a cliché, but this is a story that needs to be told and to be heard.

Summary: Moving, entertaining, thrilling, thought-provoking, even funny, The Imitation Game is a powerful, well-made biopic anchored by a brilliant leading performance from Benedict Cumberbatch.

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Begin Again

For F*** Magazine

BEGIN AGAIN

Director : John Carney

Cast : Mark Ruffalo, Keira Knightley, Adam Levine, Hailee Steinfeld, Mos Def, James Corden, CeeLo Green, Catherine Keener

Genre : Drama, Romance

Opens : 3 July 2014

Rating : NC16 (Coarse Language) 

Running time: 104 mins

Lovin’ a music man ain’t always what it’s supposed to be, and that goes for the music men behind the scenes as well. In this musical romantic comedy, Mark Ruffalo plays Dan Mulligan, the down-and-out exec of music label Distressed Records, who has an estranged wife (Keener) and daughter (Steinfeld). While drowning his sorrows at a bar one night, British singer-songwriter Gretta (Knightley) catches his attention and he immediately sets about getting a hold of her so they can collaborate on a record. It turns out that Gretta’s long-time boyfriend and songwriting partner Dave Kohl (Levine) has strayed after letting stardom get to his head. Gretta tries to leave Dave behind as she, Dan, her best friend Steve (Corden) and a motley crew of session musicians embark on recording an album on the streets of New York, guerrilla-style.

            Begin Again, formerly titled Can a Song Save Your Life?, is written and directed by John Carney of Once fame. The micro-budget Irish indie flick became a cult favourite after netting a Best Original Song Oscar for Falling Slowly and was adapted into an acclaimed musical running on Broadway and the West End. Begin Again can be seen as Carney “going Hollywood”, trading in a cheap video camera for a fancy Red Digital and having Hollywood names and pop stars in the cast. While Begin Again is certainly a glossier, slicker affair, it still retains a good measure of earnestness and sweetness and is sure to appeal to fans of music movies. In what might be somewhat meta commentary, the theme of “indie vs. big record label” crops up. There’s also a rather surprising bit of anti-product placement: Dan takes a sip of Pepsi and wonders aloud “God damn, how do people drink that?!”

            Many of the elements in Begin Again can be described as “formulaic” – there’s the maverick music producer who has been reduced to an unkempt mess but who gets a second wind upon discovering an ingénue, the disapproving ex-wife and the rebellious daughter and the ingénue’s unfaithful rock star boyfriend. An early scene has a frustrated Dan tossing demo CDs out of his car window, fed up with inane pop and in search of “real music”. However, the film does possess enough self-awareness such that it doesn’t drown in a morass of clichés and that there’s a still a soul to it. Carney also has a little fun with the structure of the first half of the film, starting in medias res before rewinding to the start of that day, telling the story from Dan’s point of view – and then rewinding further and telling it from Gretta’s. There’s also a wonderfully whimsical moment of visual invention, when upon first hearing Gretta sing, Dan begins to imagine possible arrangements for the song; the piano, drums, cello and violin sitting on stage suddenly playing by themselves in his imagination.

            Mark Ruffalo is pretty much scruffy-sexy incarnate. Once again, he looks like he badly needs a shower and a shave, but perhaps that is part of his charm. He convincingly essays a man who has fallen on hard times but who clearly once had drive and inspiration, and when that returns to him he comes alive again. Keira Knightley’s role was originally intended for Scarlett Johansson – while we don’t get the Hulk and Black Widow making sweet music together, Knightley is a perfectly acceptable substitute. Her singing voice is very pleasant and she consciously avoids turning Gretta into an idealised “manic pixie dream girl” type. When she says “I’m not Judy Garland off the greyhound bus looking for stardom”, this reviewer believes her – but wants to see her make it in the music biz all the same.

            When it comes to the casting of established singers like Adam Levine and his fellow The Voice coach CeeLo Green, it’s a Catch-22 situation: on one hand, having actual musicians in your music movie gives it credibility but on the other, it can be distracting enough to pull one out of the experience. Green’s appearance in the film is more tolerable because as hip-hop star and old pal of Dan’s nicknamed Troublegum, he could well be playing himself. However, Levine is not a brilliant actor and this reviewer happens to find his high-pitched whine of a singing voice somewhat grating. We’re also 90% sure that the name “Dave Kohl” is some kind of a dig at the similarly-named Foo Fighters frontman.

            Begin Again is a great date movie because it isn’t yet another a production line rom com and it never becomes unbearably cheesy and sappy. It won’t redefine the music flick genre, but it does have its share of sweet moments. The songs, co-written by New Radicals frontman Gregg Alexander with Danielle Brisebois, Nick Lashley, Rick Nowels and Nick Southwood, Once star Glen Hansard and Carney himself, are all very listenable if not especially memorable or catchy. And this is quite possibly the first movie to make splitter cables seem like very romantic objects.

SUMMARY: Begin Again’s formulaic elements are offset by its measured sweetness and charm.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

For F*** Magazine

JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT 

Director: Kenneth Branagh
Cast:         Chris Pine, Keira Knightley, Kevin Costner, Kenneth Branagh, Nonso Anozie, David Paymer, Colm Feore, Gemma Chan, Karen David, Lee Nicholas Harris
Genre: Action, Thriller
Run Time: 108 mins
Opens: 16 January 2014
Rating: PG13 (Brief Coarse Language & Violence)

"Jack Ryan” – it’s as American a name as “Steve Rogers”, isn’t it? Our hero here is Captain Kirk rather than Captain America, Chris Pine stepping into the shoes once filled by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck. Unlike the last four Jack Ryan films, this one isn’t based on a novel penned by the late Tom Clancy, instead rebooting the franchise with an original story. Well, “original” as in “not based directly on a book”.


Jack Ryan is a junior financial intelligence analyst with the CIA, working undercover in a bank on Wall Street. Ryan was recruited by and answers to Naval Commander William Harper (Costner), and Ryan’s first mission in the field takes him to Moscow. Russian magnate Viktor Cherevin (Branagh) is masterminding a plot to collapse the US dollar and crash the global economy with a terrorist strike on Wall Street. Things get a little complicated when Ryan’s fiancée Cathy (Knightley) arrives in Moscow to spend the weekend with him.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is best described as conventional, but not to a fault. Anyone who’s seen a handful of action thrillers will recognise all the elements at play and granted, it’s hard to come up with something terribly fresh in this genre. The shootouts, the fisticuffs, the car chases, it’s all here. And yet, the film is several steps above feeling like it’s just going through the motions, and while “financial terrorism” doesn’t sound quite as exciting as “global thermonuclear war”, there are still some thrills to be had.


One of the main reactions when the trailer for this film was released was that Jack Ryan had been turned into a run-of-the-mill espionage action hero, more Robert Ludlum than Tom Clancy. And yes, while there are moments in the film that seem straight out of the gritty, shaky-cam-infused Bourne/Daniel Craig Bond playbook (that fight in the hotel bathroom in particular), Jack Ryan is still an analyst, still a PhD-holder and still does smart-people stuff. The film also sticks surprisingly closely to Ryan’s background in the books: he’s a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps whose military career is cut short by a helicopter accident in the line of duty, and he goes on to join the CIA and take a position in a Wall Street bank.

Branagh isn’t the first name that comes to mind when one thinks of directors who’d make action thrillers but, aided by veteran second-unit director and stunt coordinator Vic Armstrong, Branagh does well here. The film’s opening quickly and efficiently establishes all the back-story on the Jack Ryan character we need to know and there’s a briskness and energy to the proceedings. The whole thing is a fairly straightforward affair but, in this age of overly-convoluted blockbusters, perhaps a coherent, semi-plausible spy thriller isn’t such a bad thing.

Pine is as charismatic and watchable as he usually is, giving us a hero who’s still learning the ropes and isn’t fully sure of himself just yet. He doesn’t quite make the role his own, but perhaps he will with time, and he is more interesting in the part than Affleck was in The Sum of All Fears (though Ford probably still is the best Jack Ryan so far). Costner makes a good authority figure, seasoned and watchful, protective over Ryan but never mollycoddling the recruit. Knightley struggles a little with an American accent and yes, the part is pretty much “the girlfriend”, but she and Pine have sufficient chemistry and, at the very least, she gets more involved in the plot than many characters of this type do. The relationship between Ryan and Cathy is believable, and Costner gets to deliver the fantastic line “This is geo-politics, not couples therapy!”

Branagh pulls double duty: the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art-trained thespian not only directs but plays the villain, going from Prince of Denmark to Oligarch of Russia. The character is a stereotype through and through, thick accent, ruthlessness, love for vodka, use of a light bulb as a torture implement… he might as well be a Bond villain. This reviewer kinda misses villains of this sort in espionage thrillers; in this age where every bad guy is “morally ambiguous”, it’s nice to have a character like Cherevin to root against and to hear him utter lines such as “Partnerships are delicate, Mr. Ryan. Sometimes they end violently” and “You think this is game, Jack?!”



Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit was pushed from a Christmas 2013 release date to Janu-“dump month”-ary, but it does feel like something that could have occupied a late-summer spot as something to see after all the humongous blockbusters have left the theatres. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before but director Branagh manages to balance a somewhat old-fashioned spy thriller sensibility with a post-Bourne style, fashioning a palatable, entertaining fifth outing for the heroic analyst.

SUMMARY: Rather generic but still enjoyable, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit benefits from solid direction and an entertaining villainous turn from Kenneth Branagh; Chris Pine a serviceable replacement for Ben Affleck.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Seeking A Friend For The End of the World

 As published in Issue #31 of F*** Magazine Singapore.

 Movie Review                                                                                                             19/7/12

SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD

2012

Starring: Steve Carell, Keira Knightley

Directed by: Lorene Scafaria

            Hollywood has long had an obsession with the end of the world. A cataclysmic, humanity-threatening event is a cinematic goldmine for awe-inspiring visuals and shocking images of large-scale devastation, as Roland Emmerich and Michael Bay know all too well. It can serve as a somber platform for contemplations on mortality and our place in the universe, as with Melancholia, or a chance for characters to weep their hearts out over their life’s regrets and attempt to set things right, as with Deep Impact. Then there are the ever-popular post-apocalyptic science-fiction adventures, such as the Mad Max, Terminator and Matrix films, that have straggling survivors forced to adapt to unforgiving landscapes and enemies.

            Writer-director Lorene Scafaria of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist fame has delivered something quite different: a dark romantic comedy about the lead-up to the end of the world. There are no expensive CGI shots or elaborate practical effects, no rousing speeches about rising up against alien invaders and no technobabble about the scientific properties of “the inevitable end”. In fact, the failure of a space shuttle mission to destroy a massive asteroid on a collision course with earth is merely mentioned on the radio as a framing device in the opening seconds of the movie.

            That asteroid has been given the innocuous-sounding nickname Matilda. Everyone knows what’s coming, and many have taken this as an excuse to literally live life like there’s no tomorrow. Nothing is taboo – there are random orgies and lootings, respectable middle-class types shooting up heroin, and parents making their kids drink alcohol. Strait-laced insurance salesman Dodge Petersen (Carell) will have none of it, and desperately wants to live out his last days in normalcy. His neighbour Penny (Knightley), a peppy, winsome wild child of sorts, comes knocking on his window in need of consolation after a break-up. The unlikely pair quickly forms a bond and embarks on a road trip to fulfill their respective last wishes – seeing her parents over in England one last time for Penny, and reuniting with a long-lost first love for Dodge. As doomsday draws ever nearer and things get out of hand, Dodge and Penny slowly realize that all they’ve wanted may be right in front of them.

            The film sets out to be a scathing, pitch-black comedy on how our lives can be almost entirely diminished of meaning when faced with a scary ultimatum and seems somewhat nihilistic. There are stabs at modern popular culture in the form of TIME Magazine’s “Best of Humanity” issue, putting Oprah Winfrey on the same pedestal as Jesus Christ. We’re meant to laugh at the juxtaposition of a grim future set in stone and random acts of debauchery, when really it’s rather off-putting. Also, suicide is never funny. However, the film quickly hits its stride once Carell and Knightley form their pair, and it is then that one realizes this would have worked so much better as a drama with comedic moments rather than a black comedy with pathos lurking beneath the surface.

            What really drives the movie is the sheer sweetness and the tender romance that blossoms against a surreal backdrop. It’s the discovery of how much simple joys can really mean in the face of certain doom, the incomparable effects of listening to a vinyl record, enjoying a home-cooked meal or having that one last phone call to the family. The sentiment that it’s never too late to mend a broken relationship or a broken heart. There are moments that are stunningly earnest in comparison to what went before, and it is a shame that Scafaria felt the need to temper this with broad, raunchy humour. Sure, there are certain inventive gags, including one where Dodge finds an adorable abandoned dog with the attached note “sorry” – and proceeds to refer to the dog by that name. This film may not have elicited many belly laughs, but it sure did elicit tears by the end.

            The movie rides on Carell’s tried-and-tested comedic shtick of an everyman flung into an outrageous situation and coping in the most mundane ways possible, greeting everything with a shrug and a confused smile-frown. He is likeable to a fault, and one certainly feels for Dodge as the film enters more heartfelt territory. He shares more chemistry with Keira Knightley than one might think, as on paper the two sound like pretty bad matches. Keira Knightley is far more watchable here than as the token female in action and fantasy flicks, she relishes having the chance to play the kooky sweetheart perfected by the likes of Zooey Deschanel and Anne Hathaway.

            Since the focus is squarely on Dodge and Penny (and Sorry the dog), there isn’t much in the way of a supporting cast; there are quite a number of characters who pop up never to be seen or heard from again. Comedian Patton Oswalt seems particularly wasted (in both senses of the word) as Dodge’s friend at a dinner party. Derek Luke’s stereotypically chivalrous and tough ex-military type who was a former flame of Penny’s is okay, but his and several other characters do bring to the mind annoying one-off eccentrics who crop up in almost all road trip movies. William Petersen of C.S.I. fame seems to have packed on a few pounds and fares better as an amiable truck driver from whom Dodge and Penny hitch a ride. But the show is stolen by Martin Sheen, whose performance in the last act is absolutely heartbreaking.

            Props have to be given to Scafaria for tackling such an unusual and ambitious topic in a comedy and it seems she has started a trend – look out for Seth Rogen’s End of the World next year, starring Rogen and a bunch of his celebrity pals as themselves at a party when doomsday unexpectedly comes knocking. Scafaria also shows a knack for writing sweet, non-cheesy romantic and emotional scenes. So in the end (heh) it’s quite a waste that she felt the need to embellish this story with several off-key, off-kilter comedic touches.

SUMMARY: Seeking a Friend seeks to blend cynical, unsettling comedy with nice touches of the sentimental, but they are even odder bedfellows than Steve Carell and Keira Knightley.

RATING: 3/5 STARS

Jedd Jong Yue