It Ends new take on fate excels at the box office
While most coming of age films center around children or teens, we have seen an increase in coming of age films that tackle themes of growth, changes, and struggle regardless of age. It Ends by director Alexander Ullom is such a film, following a group of recent college grads as they embark on one last roadtrip before going their separate ways and entering the adult world. Ullom’s debut was produced for a mere $80,000, earning nearly a million at the box office while garnering rave reviews from critics.
The film follows a group of 20 something college grads Tyler (Mitchell Cole), Fisher (Noah Toth), Day (Akira Jackson), and James (Phinehas Yoon), each with their own unique burdens as the group drives to an unknown destination. Immediately, there is tension as James, the only grad with a job offer post-grad, harps on Fisher’s optimism and argues with blue collar worker Tyler, who acts as a bit of an outsider amongst the others due to his lack of secondary education. Meanwhile, Day attempts to enjoy the company of her friends before returning to her home town, lingering on bygones from her final semester. As the group’s car turns onto a narrow forest road, they find themselves in a conundrum: the road seemingly never ends, no turn in sight.
As the group doubles back, they discover that their initial turn has been transformed into a dead end. And as they investigate the nearby woods, they are quickly stormed by mobs of strange, desperate humans who violently attack one another in an attempt to acquire the group’s car. Speeding off, the group comes to a terrifying conclusion: there is no turn off the road. Soon, they come to realize the strange rules of their problem: the car seemingly runs forever on a quarter tank of gas, they don’t seem to grow hungry or have the need for sleep, and as soon as they stop, the strange mobs will attack the car in less than ninety seconds. This turns the roadtrip into an endless pursuit of an end, with each of the members succumbing to their own feelings of this so-called purgatory. One by one, they depart from the vehicle, deciding to abandon the pursuit of some hope of an end and instead enjoy life in the woods for eternity.
James, perhaps the most pessimistic in the group, finds himself the most optimistic, denoting that after days and days of driving that the mobs seemingly lessen as less stranded drivers make it the same mileage down the road. But even as he attempts to keep the others engaged with the pursuit, he is unable to convince them that an end is coming, resulting in him spending an indeterminate, maddening time on the road with only vague memories of the people who once were his companions. But while the film has its scares, the ultimate horror comes at James’ arrival at the end of the road, discovering that there is not an infinite stretch of road to drive down with a solution somewhere along the way. Realizing that he is destined to the same fate as his peers and the crazed people in the forest, James makes one last decision, rescuing a random, somewhat comatose victim of the road and attempting to form a new friendship despite his purgatorial fate.
It Ends succeeds in the novelty of its concept, inverting your classic horror movie tropes to replace violent ends with a numb acceptance of one’s fate. Each member of the group depart on their own terms, their hope or joy exhausted by their acceptance that they can’t outdrive their fate. While James is presented as the most pessimistic of the group, his stubborn, rigid personality keeps him on the path to an answer, even when there is none. Actor Phinehas Yoon excels in the role, blending 20 something ennui with the dread of discovering one’s hope for a better tomorrow might be unrealistic.
While the film’s genre is tad nebulous, I enjoyed that this was a horror film that started extremely viscerally with mobs of crazed people attempting to carjack the graduates, to instead replace these horror elements with existentialism and a more drama-orientated finale. For a debut, Alexander Uddom’s directing and filmmaking make the most out of a small budget, delivering a tense coming-of-age horror drama film that asks big questions and often has big impact.
