The End of the F***ing World (2017)

People are voting emotionally.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Again, a Netflix binge watch situation for me. The episodes were short enough that I think I managed to watch the entire season in two nights.The acting of the two central characters is outstanding, James; a boy-man who thinks he might be a serial-killer and Alyssa; a 'new-to-town' girl who has very clear ideas of what she does and does not want. The scripting and most importantly the silences that allow the dialogue space to breathe and plot to grow is excellent (as you might expect honed from the original comic-book story). But that's not all! The cinematography is fantastic, e.g. episode 1, you are given a birds eye view of their exit from a very neat and manicured sub-urban street (apparently filmed in Windlesham - where I once worked - didn't recognise it). Similarly, there are lots if exterior / interior shots of circa 1960 / 1970 build houses that are clearly architechtural one off's . This is very intriguing to me - I have a penchant for mid-century / contemporary architechture. I wonder if any of the crew had previously worked on the also C4 series 'Utopia'?Overall, the pace, acting , dialogue and locations make this a must watch, bring on series two!!

It's like if Freaks and Geeks met Dexter. And was British. It's borderline perfect.

A short synopsis being James is a self diagnosed sociopath who want to finally kill a person, and Allysa just wants to get out of her home and find her biological dad. When James and Allysa finally set out they brake into a house to stay there. James is becoming more attached to Allysa and visa versa. James then finds tapes of the women this home owner has raped and murdered. With this though, the owner comes home and tries to rape Allysa. James then stabs him and ultimately kills him. They both go back on the run to find Allysa's dad. When they get their though, James notices he isn't what they thought he would be. When Allysa figures this out her dad is trying to keep them there once he found out there's reward money. They break out and try to run away from the ensuing police who know they killed the home owner. James then makes an attempt to sacrifice himself and we hear him running off into the distance with the sound of a gun shot fading to black. I went into this thinking it was going to be one of those teen shows trying to be edgy and go as far down the rabbit hole as they can. This guys a sociopath and she's just a manic pixie dream girl trying to get out, what crazy shenanigans will ensue! It almost sounding like they're riding off the Joker and Harley Quinn steam train that barelled through pop culture recently. A show like this can be akin to the first half kinda being that, but it makes the pay off that much more worth it. At exactly the murder of the home owner, this become nothing of what I previously said, it becomes a beautiful deconstruction of the said thing. The moment James kills the home owner, he's tramatized and immediately notices he's misjudged himself as a sociopath. He is sickened at the corpse, even one of a terrible person. Allysa, effected too by somebody being killed in front of her and being nearly raped. The two throughout the series often talk about if what they did was right or wrong, if that mattered, and how they felt about the whole thing. This is where it starts deconstructing these crazy crime rampage movies by making the characters instantly repulsed by what they're doing. They spiral down, seeing their flaws as people and mistakes that lead to this. What they've done wrong and how their actions as the cool teenage Bonnie & Clyde lead them to committing a terrible act they'll never recover or forgive them self for. With that we delve deeper into these characters, learning why James is so disconnected. His mother had committed suicide by driving into a pond in front of him, leaving him to sit for hours waiting for someone to come find him. Now while this isn't exactly new the execution was different. It wasn't like she hung herself or slit her wrists in front of him, it was silent and thoughtful, unlike most scenes like this. Barely anything was said, and he wasn't yelling or going over the top, just sitting there looking at what he witnessed, and we see the moment he simply stopped. Stopped letting himself care, stopped letting people see when he did. He also comes to resent his dad, seeming to somewhat blame him for his mother's death, possibly because he suggested she tough it out and go to the duck pond with him. While Alyssa doesn't change much from what we know about her, her mom is submissive to her husband who doesn't want Alyssa there, she grows from her experiences and feeling actual reciprocated affection. The character become less these edgy teenager rebelling against their parent and the law, and more that these are just scared young adults who have, and are, going through tough issues while just wanting to find a way out of their problems and a start new life. Some people see then end as preachy, stupid, or in this case, edgy, but I don't really feel that way. It's a beautiful send off to a beautiful first season. James gets it now, he feels something, and it finally set him free from these years of isolating himself. He's come to a conclusion that he's loved and is willing to make a sacrifice for it. Yes we know this, but now James knows it. James has finally decided there's something in his life he cares about enough to give it up. If I may go into the cinematography, which I will despite your response, it's part of what elevated this even more. It was beautifully shot, and styled toward a directness and full frontal standing towards the camera. Lighting was always beautiful, with light seeping in from every nook and cranny. The colors were always beautiful and matched perfectly with the mood. The stand out shot of the film for me was James and Allysa cuddling on the bed together and James looking up at the camera. It was uncomfortably close and James was just looking at the straight at the camera, almost scared. To me, this perfectly conveyed James starting to notice his rising feeling and not knowing how to cope with it. How well this was done can be attributed to Alex Lawthers wonderful portrayal of the character, truly embodying him at hat moment without saying any words. This isn't to discount Jessica's bardens preformance, since she had shining moments, I just loved Alex's in particular due to his dynamic character and showing of Alex's range. That ends my thoughts on the show, leaving it one of my favorite, if not my favorite show of all time. Disagree with me on that if you will, but this show has so much to say I can't help but not forget it.

This is cheap, efficient, small cast, low on decors. Sadly it is also slow. And the witticism are so forced it's hard to watch it without skipping often. A nice thing is that the production team usually uses the background as some sort of paragraph in the script, so when the background is changed in the thumbnail you can try your luck with a new set of dialogue. In the end I appreciate the work on minimal budget, but this is not for me.