Review of Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012) by Mandy D — 05 Jan 2013

I had high hopes for this film seeing the reviews here so decided to go and see it. However after 15 minutes of watching this drivelmy eyes started to fall asleep... how this got such good reviews is beyond me?

First of all, the completely unbelievable plot and character motivations might actually be justified if this were a "comedy". However, this film is far from funny, in fact the jokes are beyond poor, lazy, and completely unoriginal. I laughed once (I think although I feel asleep).

Secondly, nothing can be worse than Keira Knightley's performance as this superficial "English" girl. Even within the first 3 minutes of her appearance you will find a completely irritating, unbelievable, shallow character thanks to persistent over-acting of such clichés.

Secondly, since this film is classed into the "Romance" genre and the overriding plot is that they get together in the end, you would at least expect the two leading characters to have some sort of rapport or even a smidgen of a spark between them? No chance! The relationship between the Keira and Steve is wooden, awkward and completely unbelievable. The two characters interact on a level that doesn't even qualify as friendship and it is tiring to watch... Steve is completely passive while Keira rants on pretending to be this dizzy, annoying idiot. Even if it was possible to combine these two completely incompatible characters, the acting makes it completely impossible to believe!

Even in the later scene's when they are lying side by side in bed, you can almost detect Steve Carell is as tired and irritated by Keira as I was, while muttering words of unconditional, end-of-world, LOVE - ?????

After a good hour of enduring this film, sometime towards the end I woke up to Keira Knightley talking about the grooves on vinyl records in a style not dissimilar to some boring relative filling time and having NOTHING else to talk about... that's how boring, annoying, and plot-less this film is, you are literally on the edge of your seat hoping something will just HAPPEN...to the point where I just felt this film was wasting my time..

So what is this film? Romance, Comedy, Drama?

None of these; just a messy concoction with no direction or identity, irritating 2D characters, and an unbelievable, unmoving story that will make you wish you were doing something more constructive with your time... like being asleep.