The End of Love (2013)

Very disappointing...

Thanks for the memories!

Simply Perfect

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Quite possibly the most frightening movie I've seen since Amour, and the single most effective ad for birth control. Writer and director Mark Webber plays Mark, a single dad in Hollywood, and enlists his friends to play unflattering versions of themselves.Mark is struggling. He's a widowed dad and an aspiring actor who is potentially THE WORST dirty talker around. Dragging around his kid, Isaac, wherever he goes and borrowing money from one friend to pay back another, he still seems pretty oblivious to reality. And while his resilience is admirable, it can be pretty painful to witness his embarrassments.The first half of the story is pretty unremarkable. Similar to how Mark treats his kid, the movie drags us by the hand from place to place with no focus or direction and has all the excitement of running errands. Things do pick up in the second half, however, with the film's strongest scenes stacked up next to each other as it becomes genuinely engaging for perhaps the first time. Unfortunately, it runs out of track before it can stick the landing.The real pearl here is the relationship between Mark and Isaac (Issac Love) and the performance Webber draws from his real-life son. The two have a wonderful, genuine connection that carries most of the film. I may have been pulled in further had he not been a dead ringer for the kid from Pet Sematary. However, one couldn't help pity the poor little guy for some of the situations he's put in, as Mark is so desperate for someone to share his pain, he forces his son to experience loss so that Mark doesn't have to face it alone. One imagines this is just the beginning.

I absolutely loved this movie. This is a story of an emotional journey of a young man with a little boy, his son, whose life had changed abruptly and without a warning. It is not easy to cope and adjust after a loved one dies. It is not easy to find your way in a "new" reality, not easy to understand why others don't understand. I could not figure out how this film was made, since it is impossible for a two years old child to "act", until I read that The End of Love was filmed with a small digital camera to minimize intrusion. The acting is superb, the little boy is adorable. The other reviewers called Mark a struggling and dissolute single father and that is all this movie about-I strongly disagree. I saw none of that. He is trying to get back on his feet, find some sort of normalcy under the circumstances. Grief comes in different forms and length.

This movie was a major bummer. I saw it at the festival and it was one of the few that I didn't enjoy. It's so disappointing because I feel like it had tons of potential. It's basically about an awful father who won't grow up and do what's right for his son. It's really pathetic. It also drove me crazy how many actors they threw in there to up the cast list. I think only one actor had a character name and the others went by their real names. The most annoying of which being Michael Cera. They didn't even call him by just his first name, he was always "Michael Cera." And his character was a total asshole, which ruined Arrested Development for me. There were a couple tender moments, and Isaac was super cute, but not enough to redeem the movie.

I saw this movie at Sundance 2012 and it gripped me from the opening shot, with his waking son's feet on his back. I cried throughout the entire flick. It's an honest, raw look at parenthood and it struck a chord. Mark Webber captures the balance between wanting the freedom of single life and the over-protective roar of parenting where you'll do whatever it takes for your child.Well done. Spoilers:My two favorite scenes were the first one in the graveyard, when Mark is asking for help from his wife and his son spontaneously hugs him. His choked out "thank you" is incredibly moving. My second favorite scene was when he's asked to leave his apartment at the end of the month but is so angry he gathers up his sleeping son and bails right then...only to realize that probably wasn't the smartest decision. I've been there...not kicked out but so ticked off at actions by non-parents that I just left in an effort to protect my son and ended up walking down a Phoenix street in the 120 degree heat. Dumb. And humbling.