How It Ends movie recommendation… and you know what, I literally refuse to put up with your sardonic and ultra-cynical disdain because of my decision to recommend this movie. You cynicism is the reason I find myself recommending How It Ends. So just stop. How It Ends is an unabashedly optimistic view of the end of the world and what it means to live life in spite of the never ending nearing of the end of the world.
There is a new trend in the world of Indie film making. Write a clever script about a woman in a bloodied server outfit, and have her walk from one end of the city to the other on her way to making amends with the universe. And on her way, have her run into 19 different cameo celebrities and just pile on the clever witticisms, hilarious non-sequiturs, and tangentially keep the story heading towards its inevitable ending of reconciliation, and voila, you have one of the world’s cheapest movies ever made. Don’t believe me? Izzy Gets the F Across Town. Sound of Noise. Columbus. Ingrid Goes West. Before Sunrise. You get the idea. (I think there is a brilliant list in there somewhere.) Watch How It Ends online right now, here, here or here.
Why I’m Recommending How It Ends
In my humble opinion, movies should cause the viewer to work. They should force us to ponder, life, the universe, and everything. A great movie should stop us in our tracks and cause us to walk through life in a bit of a stupor. And a perfect movie? It’ll make us change. And How It Ends does many of these things. Yes, it’s low-key, it’s funny, it’s off-beat in pretty much every single way. And yet, it causes the viewer to think about why we are all here, and how we can overcome our own fears and failings.
The movie’s setup is pretty simple. The world is ending tonight. There is a comet, heading straight for the planet, and it is a planet killer. Everyone in the world is going to die. And Liza? She’s lived her life in fear, she’s lived her life regretting. And she’s lived her life with her secret alter-ego, secret friend, her younger self. Wait, what? Yeah, that is the clever bit here – Liza spends the entire movie walking around L.A. with her secret Drop Dead Fred, younger self to keep her company. Funny thing is, instead of being secret, everyone is living a life of so highly tuned alertness, that everyone else can see her secret friend. It’s a pretty clever setup, and plays straight in to the movie’s brilliant ending.
Knowing this, Liza has decided she is going to go through her social network, and set all things to rights before the day is over. Before the end of the world. And with that, Liza and Liza (younger self) head out – but as her car has been stolen, they spend the rest of the movie walking in the middle of the street, throughout the hills of Los Angeles. It’s funny because, only at the end of the world would anyone walk anywhere in L.A. Right? I mean, there’s a song on this exact topic. I grew up in L.A. – literally never walked anywhere. And yet, this seems to be communicating something interesting. Something bigger. In fact, we never see a single car driving on the street the entire movie. This detail was so conspicuous to me, it pulled me completely out of my suspension of disbelief… “Wonder how many guys are blocking traffic down the street? Huh, this is a big crossroads… 6? Did they have to get permits for filming…? This is Los Angeles. Yes, they totally got permits for filming.” When I grew up there – I would regularly see the CHIPS, the A-Team, Silver Spoons, Knight Rider, and about a billion other crews that were constantly shutting down our morning commutes for filming. But I digress.
Interestingly, this detail – the zero traffic at the end of the world – flips this movie on its head completely. Which got me thinking. Why? What is this saying about the message of the film? What are the various points that the film is sending to the audience? And I think it’s important in realizing that this film is actually letting the viewer know that this is 100% mythical – a morality tale for the viewer. It’s more about our daily life today than it is about some theoretical end of the world (which would be filled with chaos, and looting, and mayhem. Right? Wouldn’t it? Yes. Definitively.)
It felt like this movie was built specifically for our Covid universe right now. An optimistic, light-hearted look at one individual’s desperate attempts to come to terms with themselves. A love song to a desire to drop the psychic disorder we carry around with us day after day. It’s an ode to all our attempts to drop our constant regret and self-loathing which literally every human being, who ever lived, has struggled with. Not being good enough. Not being nice enough. Not being any enough, compared to what we would like to be. And yet, we watch as Liza has her most intriguing interaction with herself as the world winds down.
“No one loves me.” Liza
“I love you.” Younger Liza
“You don’t count.” Liza
But she does count, and it’s an interesting thought. I know self-confidence is indicative of absolutely nothing. (Prisoners are well known to have extraordinarily high confidence in themselves, in spite of the fact that they are currently sitting in jail.) But appreciating yourself, being kind to yourself, and giving yourself a break is another thing entirely… and we all suck at it. So for me, I found the message of this cute little film to be extraordinarily heartwarming. But also informative and educational in a non-pedantic way. It was like a 90-minute long pep talk – which I found that I could really use. So thanks How It Ends… I appreciated it.
How It Ends is literally Izzy Gets the F*ck Across Town, with a twist. I mean, all the way down to the duet in the middle of the movie. If you enjoyed How It Ends, you should definitely check out Izzy.
Edited by: CY
