Seeking a Friend for the End of the World picks up where your average asteroid threatens the planet movie leaves off, or rather where it would leave off if the heroic last ditch effort to save the Earth had failed. The movie begins with a grave radio broadcast reporting on the loss of the Deliverance, the shuttle and its crew blew up in space and with them so did mankind's last hope of diverting the impending impact of 'Matilda'. "Matilda" is the common name given to the massive piece of space rock whose collision with the Earth will wipe out all human life in a mear three weeks time, but at least the radio stations promises to keep playing your favorite oldies right up until the end. This sets the tone for the movie, the varied, often ridicules ways mankind copes with impending extension.
The movies lead character Dodge Petersen is played by Steve Carrell, he's the sort of sad sack, endearing, semi-looser you'd expect from Carrell, and not only is his world literaly ending, but his wife's just left him. Dodge is one of the last people to continue to show up for his job at an insurance company, a pointless exercise, much like the time he continues to spend in the company gym. He attends a party with some friends, one of whom (the cleavage bearing Connie Britton) wants to set him up with a needy friend played by Melanie Lynskey. Dodge is not interested, he has no desire to spend his remaining weeks getting to know someone new, that is until he meets Penny, played by Kira Knightly.
Steve Carrell and Kira Knightly, not a naturally credible pair, but it works, because the end of the world is the sort of situation in which people seem likely to keep a very open mind dating wise. Carrell and Knightly actually have good chemistry, and she's quite the charmer in this, she doesn't usually get to play comedy. Penny insists on taking Dodge on a final quest to reunite with his old high school sweetheart, she feels she owes him this do to her failure to deliver a letter sent to Carrell from his ex months earlier when it was delivered to her apartment by mistake. The two embark on a road trip, meeting interesting cameo's along the way, including a suicidal William Peterson, a survivalist Derek Luke, and a very friendly waitress played by Gillian Jacobs.
It's dark comedy, and it's also a rather sweet love story, and it does both well, but it can't help but awkwardly mesh. If anything could use reworking it would have to be the last act, but I don't know if any ending to a story like this could really find the right tone, though this one feels increadably close. Seeking a Friend is a likable movie, though it left me rather melancholy, an admirable and worthwhile effort to make something rather different, more people should really see it. ***
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