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THE END: 1½ STARS. “brings its tuneful, yet grim world view to your local theatre.”

SYNOPSIS: In “The End,” a new apocalyptic musical starring Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon, and now playing in theatres, a rich oil executive and family lives, alongside their personal doctor, butler, maid and friend, in an underground bunker far away from the flaming inferno that has erupted on the earth’s surface.

CAST: Tilda Swinton, George MacKay, Moses Ingram, Bronagh Gallagher, Tim McInnerny, Lennie James, and Michael Shannon. Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer.

REVIEW: The all-singing-all-dancing “Wicked” may be the most popular musical on the big screen but it’s not the only one. Recently the Mexican Cartel musical “Emilia Pérez” played in cinemas. This weekend “The End,” a rare entry in the apocalyptic musical genre, brings its tuneful, yet grim world view to your local theatre.

Imagine twenty years in a claustrophobic underground bunker. The world outside is ablaze, and for two decades you’ve been locked in a subterrain suite of rooms with your parents and three of their friends. “Each day feels exactly like the last,” sings Mother (Tilda Swinton).

It would be tedious.

Almost as tedious as sitting through the solemn, overlong “The End.”

In director and co-writer Joshua Oppenheimer’s film Michael Shannon plays Father, a former oil executive who bears some responsibility for the calamity the world finds itself in. As oil well across the world burn out of control—and could continue to flame for hundreds of years, rendering life on the surface impossible—he looks for ways to rationalize his culpability and protect his legacy. “We’ll never know if our industry contributed to rising temperatures,” he says.

When a stranger (Moses Ingram) shows up near their compound, the first newcomer in twenty years, her presence upsets their carefully curated lives. Secrets are revealed and tensions arise, all set to songs written by Oppenheimer and composer Joshua Schmidt.

This is audacious work, with very committed performances from the cast, but this bleak study of guilt becomes overwhelmed by pretension and wears out its welcome well before the end credits roll.


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