Seeking Some Sentiment for the End of the World: On Sentimentality and Cynicism in Art and Popular Culture
While recently watching the 2012 drama-comedy Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, about the adventures of two strangers who meet as an asteroid is set to destroy Earth, I found myself trying to resist it. The source of this resistance came from those scenes and plot devices that tested my tolerance for sentimentality: who didn’t see it coming that Steve Carell’s character Dodge would reunite with his long absent father? Did anyone think Keira Knightley's character Penny wouldn’t reappear at the last minute having realized true love at last? We even have a little white dog thrown into the mix, abandoned and then saved at the end just like Dodge.
A cuteness asteroid that powerful didn't need any help from outer space. And yet by the end of the movie, when asked whether or not I’d enjoyed it, the last of my resistance had crumbled along with the rest of the planet: I enjoyed Seeking a Friend for the End of the World very much, little white dog and all.
A fair number of potentially enjoyable films these days are marred by turns of plot so predictable you can go out for a pizza and come back thirty minutes later without missing anything but the latest seizure-inducing string of special effects. (Change special effects to action scenes and insert a fair number of potentially enjoyable novels, as well). A lot of this predictability hinges on the tedious gut-spilling, gun-slinging, face-punching that goes along with these special effects. The flip-side knew-it-was-coming moments, however, play upon our need to ultimately restore the balance from all of this destruction with the never-fail feel good of sentiment. The hero (or, just as often these days, the anti-hero or downright scoundrel) always gets the girl; the heartfelt reconciliation or world-changing epiphany or heroic sacrifice always comes in the nick of time; the metaphoric sun always rises, even when the literal one has been destroyed by an asteroid...
Click the link below to read more:
http://www.bescully.com/2013/06/seeki...
A cuteness asteroid that powerful didn't need any help from outer space. And yet by the end of the movie, when asked whether or not I’d enjoyed it, the last of my resistance had crumbled along with the rest of the planet: I enjoyed Seeking a Friend for the End of the World very much, little white dog and all.
A fair number of potentially enjoyable films these days are marred by turns of plot so predictable you can go out for a pizza and come back thirty minutes later without missing anything but the latest seizure-inducing string of special effects. (Change special effects to action scenes and insert a fair number of potentially enjoyable novels, as well). A lot of this predictability hinges on the tedious gut-spilling, gun-slinging, face-punching that goes along with these special effects. The flip-side knew-it-was-coming moments, however, play upon our need to ultimately restore the balance from all of this destruction with the never-fail feel good of sentiment. The hero (or, just as often these days, the anti-hero or downright scoundrel) always gets the girl; the heartfelt reconciliation or world-changing epiphany or heroic sacrifice always comes in the nick of time; the metaphoric sun always rises, even when the literal one has been destroyed by an asteroid...
Click the link below to read more:
http://www.bescully.com/2013/06/seeki...
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