Zoe Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein’s How it Ends — now on Hulu, after getting a limited theatrical release in July of 2021 — dubs itself a “feel-good apocalyptic comedy,” which, you know, ha ha ha? Lister-Jones also stars, as a lonely-ish woman seeking closure on a few interpersonal issues in the 24 hours before a meteor rends the Earth asunder, killing all its denizens with hideous explosions and fire and crumbling and falling rock and miscellaneous geophysical upheavals and stuff like that, one presumes. Making things even a touch weirder, the film was shot on unpopulated Los Angeles streets during pandemic lockdowns, which could explain why Lister-Jones’ character never even hugs her mom on their final day of the planet not being wholly aflame — which only adds to the movie’s abundant (deep breath) quirkiness (exhaaaaaaalllllllllle).
HOW IT ENDS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: Liza’s (Lister-Jones) younger self (Cailee Spaeny) drags her out of bed, makes her a towering pile of pancakes and pours her a nice glass of maple syrup — the good kind, not just some Butterworth’s fructose crap. Yes, her younger self. Usually, Liza is the only one who can see and interact with Young Liza, who looks to be maybe 13 or 14, but this is an inexplicably special day in which others may do the same. It’s unlike any other day in the sense that it’s the last one on Earth as me and you and everyone we know knows it, as a flaming ball of space rock streaks across the sunny blue California sky, poised to murder billions of people and probably all the mammals and fish and insects too. One imagines that this would suck and be not much fun, but surely one would rather not imagine it.
Today, Young Liza will help her present self make amends with some people as best as she can — ex-boyfriends, an estranged former BFF, her parents — before hitting a goodbye-to-all-existence-as-we-know-it party, where she plans to get high and eat food until she barfs. They walk outside to see that Liza’s car has been stolen, so they’ll have to walk. They meet a guy named Gary (Nick Kroll) who bought out the local dispensary, but gives them some of his weed because hell is so very very nigh. They visit their father (Bradley Whitford) and mother (Helen Hunt) and an ex (Lamorne Morris) and the friend (Olivia Wilde) she lost because she warned Liza about the aforementioned ex, and banter with the occasional stranger on the street, including Jet (Sharon Van Etten), who sings a lovely song, a standup comic (Ayo Edebiri) telling jokes to nobody, a fella who reveals he’s the newly not-invisible younger self to an elderly man (Fred Armisen), etc.
Notably, everyone here is pretty blase about being force-fed armageddon by a cruel and cold god or universe. There’s no angst or despair. They’re so very droll about it, having apparently accepted their fate and come to the conclusion that this sunny day should be appreciated — save for maybe that one guy who says the meteor is a hoax, to which Liza responds, hey, don’t you believe in science, and then he responds that science is bullshit. Anyway, all of Liza’s encounters are (deep breath) quirky (exhaaaaaaalllllllllle), and one has to wonder what all she’s accomplishing here, if anything.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Melancholia and Me and You and Everyone We Know.
Performance Worth Watching: Spaeny — who we saw in Mare of Eastown and Devs — grounds this irony-heavy movie by playing the key role with a touch more earnestness than the rest of the cast.
Memorable Dialogue: Liza: My whole life, I’ve been terrified of dying alone, and tonight I am literally dying alone.
Young Liza: You’re not alone. You have me.
Liza: You don’t count. You’re metaphysical.
Sex and Skin: The fact that we don’t see people in this movie effing at the end of the world is because during the real-world near-apocalypse, one actor getting too close to another actor would have violated COVID protocols.
Our Take: OK, maybe that isn’t fair, the thing about the effing. Liza’s goal isn’t to get some just before/as existence goes kablooey, although it wouldn’t be so bad if she enjoyed a physical rejoinder with that one hunky ex she astronomically blew it with, and who we meet while he’s flipping his luscious hair and holding a small adorable puppy in each arm. Her goals are a different cliche than the humping-your-way-into-eternity cliche; she wants to maybe find a snatch of happiness before she’s incinerated. Who can blame her? Although true closure sure seems to be a myth, the quest for it is noble.
The issue with How it Ends, though, goes beyond its meandering, episodic structure, which is essentially a small-scale parade of celebrity cameos. The characters’ flattened response to near-immediate death feels like heavily calculated whimsical irony. The core idea is funny — saving the world is moot, might as well dive into your navel and find a little personal truth — but the execution is a touch humdrum, and never elevates amusing situations and interactions into big laughs.
There’s a scene in which Liza and Young Liza come upon a road sign that would usually read DO NOT ENTER but instead says YOU ARE ENOUGH, and Liza quips, “That’s a little on the nose.” That’s the most self-consciously (deep breath) quirky (exhaaaaaaalllllllllle) moment in a movie full of self-consciously (deep breath) quirky (exhaaaaaaalllllllllle) characters, although Hunt’s turn as the mom with regrets is its most grounding and emotionally realistic moment. Such self-awareness works better when Liza realizes she just needs to come to terms with Young Liza, that living with and accepting yourself is perhaps more meaningful than any attempt to right past wrongs — you know, you do you and the rest will work itself out, even though you and the rest will soon cease to exist. That’s the heartfelt, meaningful core of a movie that’s otherwise full of people just deadpanning until they’re just dead.
Our Call: STREAM IT, because How it Ends has just enough marginal charm to keep it afloat. But maybe wait until it’s free on a streaming service before you pony up 10 bucks for it.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.
