Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon are two of essentially the most electrical and electrical and infrequently eccentric actors on this planet, so it comes as no shock that after they teamed up for a challenge, it wouldn’t be one thing like a shiny HBO miniseries a few high-profile Malibu couple caught in a scandal, with a title like “All of the Good Little Lies” or some such factor.
Not hardly. Swinton and Shannon head an impressive ensemble that sadly will get swallowed up within the tedious and one-note slog that’s “The Finish,” an underground bunker post-apocalyptic musical melodrama. You learn that proper: Occasionally the characters break into tune as in the event that they’re in Rodgers and Hammerstein musical — if Rodgers and Hammerstein had immediately misplaced about 90% of their expertise. (It doesn’t assist that no person within the forged has musical theater-level singing chops. They’re enough at finest, and perhaps that’s a part of a joke I didn’t get.)
Directed by the expert documentarian Joshua Oppenheimer (who co-wrote the screenplay with Rasmus Heisterberg), “The Finish” is about within the large and sprawling but in some way claustrophobic-feeling underground dwelling the place a half-dozen folks have been residing for some 20 years, after some type of environmental cataclysm primarily ended civilization. Tilda Swinton is Mom, a inflexible taskmaster who claims to have danced within the Bolshoi, Michael Shannon is Father and George MacKay is Son, who’s about 20 and is aware of nothing of the world past the partitions of this shelter. (That is the second film in latest weeks, after “Nightbitch,” during which the primary characters aren’t assigned names.)
Following the teachings of Father, who’s writing a self-serving memoir and was an vitality firm mogul who might need been a serious contributor to the demise of the world, Son is getting one terribly skewed model of historical past. In line with Father, it’s debatable whether or not his fracking enterprises contributed in any method to the demise of civilization, and in reality, many thought-about him a hero. Yeah, certain Dad.
(The manufacturing design is kind of sensible, as we actually really feel as if we’re in an underground compound. You’ve heard about that 1,400-acre compound Mark Zuckerberg is constructing on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, full with a 5,000-square-foot underground bunker? One imagines the bunker would appear like this.)
Additionally residing within the bunker: a private physician (Lennie James), a butler (Tim McInnerny), a maid (Danielle Ryan) and an expensive previous pal (Bronagh Gallagher). Everybody just about sticks to the roles they’d earlier than the tip of the world, with Mom fussing about the place to rearrange numerous items of priceless art work (apparently this bunch noticed the tip of the world coming, and gathered up fairly the gathering of fabric possessions upfront), and the group periodically taking part in survival drills, as in the event that they’re anticipating to be attacked any day now. (At one level we get a glimpse of the butler’s scars from a bullet wound as he references a violent battle from the previous.) In addition they make a degree of celebrating holidays, although the merriment at all times appears pressured and relatively pointless.
Over the 148-minute operating time, the characters often break into tune, with the forged delivering renditions which might be achingly earnest, but usually beneath the requirements of a stable neighborhood theater troupe. This isn’t a lot a conventional musical drama a la “Wicked” as it’s a turgid, heavy-handed and preachy melodrama interspersed with musical numbers which might be serviceable however hardly memorable. (Oppenheimer wrote the lyrics, and composer Joshua Schmidt scored the songs.)
As is commonly the case with these dystopian bunker/shelter/fortress movies and sequence, an sudden customer arrives, proving Mother and Dad and the gang aren’t the one ones who survived the apocalypse. Moses Ingram performs Lady, a younger Black girl who’s the one member of her household to outlive; she discovered the bunker as a result of smoke was billowing out, so I suppose ol’ fracking Dad and firm are STILL not essentially the most environmentally pleasant.
The arrival of Lady is the launching level for extra finger-shaking social commentary, what with the privileged white Mom arguing towards even letting Lady in, and voicing stern disapproval when Son takes a liking to Lady. (Hey, perhaps there’s hope for the inhabitants to proceed in spite of everything!) Nonetheless, regardless that Son and Lady (eesh with these non-names) would possibly simply be the final younger folks on the planet who can reproduce, their chemistry is mid-level at finest.
By the point we lastly attain the tip of “The Finish,” we’re considering it’s a rattling disgrace that these thinly drawn, self-involved caricatures have been those who survived the apocalypse, whereas billions of presumably extra fascinating folks have been swept away.
