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Through films like The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence, Joshua Oppenheimer has made a name for himself as one of the most exciting new filmmakers working within the documentary genre. With The End, he makes his own foray into narrative feature filmmaking – and it’s a very peculiar turn at that. It’s a musical supposedly set after the apocalypse, and that might as well be interesting enough on paper. The lofty ambitions of Joshua Oppenheimer for such a project are to be admired, even though ultimately, The End just doesn’t quite work.

Being a musical based around what supposedly is the last living family on Earth, The End takes place inside of a bunker. It’s a very lavish set piece at that, to the point that this very last family’s home happens to look exactly like a mansion. Everywhere outside though, seems to be within a salt mine – but the family is still living the best that they can despite the circumstances outside. The balance that they’d established is thrown off with the presence of a younger girl in the bunker, who threatens an already established balance in the lifestyle that they lead. Surely enough, it’s a simple template that just as well may have been familiar for many apocalypse narratives, but The End tries to do something different by making it a musical.

Unfortunately, it never quite lands. None of the musical numbers stand out, but the most telling thing about The End is just the fact that it doesn’t really serve much purpose as a musical too. The conception of a film about the end of the world is one thing, but is there any reason why Joshua Oppenheimer had felt that a musical would be the best way to convey this message? What comes of The End is not so much a film about the apocalypse but just any other rich family making with whatever means they have – which could feasibly result in the end of the world, as it always comes down to the rich.

The problem here is just clear as day: I don’t think Joshua Oppenheimer knows what he’s trying to aim for. And even if he were, his targets are far too obvious and they don’t say anything beyond the surface. It only makes the film’s conception as a musical all the more confusing at that, because the musical numbers that we’re given never really inform the audience of what it feels like to be the last remaining family with any supposed sort of civilized order present. It all just reeks of a sense of entitlement from the family’s riches, and they’re all horribly dull caricatures at best.

I think there’s at least some admiration to be found in The End’s production design: with the fact that Joshua Oppenheimer sets the outside of the bunker within a salt mine. It all looks like every minute of this movie is so intricately planned, and it’s all especially gorgeous too. But if there’s anything present in The End where it’d be easy enough to see where Joshua Oppenheimer has found some success, it’s in how he maintains a very bleak tone all throughout. After all, this might just as well be on par for a movie about the apocalypse and the musical numbers being present as some sort of a coping mechanism for a downfall of mankind that very well would have been on their own hands. Fittingly, the whole world as they know it is a stage and the film consistently uses it to its own advantage to create a bleak tone all throughout.

It’s just a shame though, that knowing the sort of films that Joshua Oppenheimer has made prior to The End, that his efforts all came down into this. He’s a very gifted filmmaker, and perhaps one of the most exciting faces working in film today – but to see that all of his own talents had been wasted on this feels like a very devastating blow. It’s a musical where every song just feels like it’s one in the same, but never one with any insight into what it wishes to say beyond the surface. Watching The End, you certainly will find yourself waiting till you reach the end of the whole ordeal.

All images via NEON.

Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer
Screenplay by Joshua Oppenheimer, Rasmus Heisterberg
Produced by Joshua Oppenheimer, Signe Byrge Sørensen, Tilda Swinton
Starring Tilda Swinton, George MacKay, Moses Ingram, Michael Shannon, Bronagh Gallagher, Tim McInnerny, Lennie James
Premiere Date: August 31, 2024
Running Time: 148 minutes