In an apocalyptic future, a small man from a remote town seems to be the only human being alive.
When I started watching the film, I found the initial approach very interesting. The character called Del, played impeccably by the great little actor Peter Dinklage, walks through the streets of the village where he spent his whole life, entering the houses to clean them, taking the lifeless bodies to a remote location, where he will proceed to bury them.
What Del does, seems to be his main occupation, we don't know anything about what happened, we intuit that some kind of virus, ended with the life of all the people. Del seems to be the only survivor in that post-apocalyptic world.
That little man follows a routine every day, marking on a map all the houses he has cleaned. He has taken on that job, being the only inhabitant of the city, now he lives in the library, where he keeps the books he finds in the houses, some were lent by the library and in an archive, they keep the record of the inhabitants, with their respective photographs.
The first twist comes with the appearance of the other protagonist, the beautiful young Grace, played by a correct Elle Fanning. She comes to break Del's routine. She is, apparently, another survivor of the apocalypse, who appears out of nowhere, crashing a car into a street.
The coexistence between the only two survivors, apparently alone in that city, begins very well, but loses energy as we see the development. Because of a script that seems to be unfinished. It begins a tedious succession of scenes, trying to convey depth where there is none.
There are very important questions we can ask ourselves. It's intriguing to imagine what our behavior would be like in front of a scenario like the one described in the film. How to overcome that loneliness, where there is no one left, where you can't talk to other people, without your loved ones, without signs of more survivors, where it seems we are alone for the rest of our lives.
Neither the beautiful shots, nor the good work of photography, very similar to other science fiction films of today, manage to save the film from the precipice where the story falls. It seems that they apply the formula of independent cinema, silences, long shots, looks at the horizon, but silences, to make a story attractive, which fails in its second half.
When the second important turn came, the tedium had already sedated me, which should have made me feel excited, a surprise, it seemed to me totally absurd and incoherent.
I'm not going to tell you anything important, zero spoilers, so as not to ruin your viewing, but I'll tell you that the way the film takes, without giving enough explanation, trying to hide that empty space in the story, which they didn't find a way to fill, destroys the excellent initial idea
The script written by Mike Makowsky, who did very well the script of the HBO film Bad Education , perhaps because it was based on real facts , from a time he knows because he was a high school student when the scandal occurred. But in this adventure of apocalyptic future, he needed to improve, especially the development towards the final climax.
Filmmaker Reed Morano, known for directing episodes of series such as Halt and Catch Fire, Billions and The Handmaid's Tale, did a good job, capturing some beautiful scenes on the screen: Those images were the only thing that kept me from closing the film window and forgetting about it.
The film is like a big balloon, beautifully decorated, but as the minutes go by, it deflates, until it reaches a point where it can no longer stay in the air, falling sharply at the end.
I have contradictory feelings about the film, on the one hand, I value the positive aspects, besides, I was looking forward to seeing them, the couple of protagonists are excellent actors, when I saw them together, in a post-apocalyptic science fiction story, I expected a product with more consistency.
That's my appreciation, you can be fascinated by it. Watch the film and get your own assessment.
My Ranking: 2.7/5
Trailer
