Zoe Lister-Jones’ apocalyptic comedy

Only three things will survive the apocalypse: Cockroaches, Twinkies, and celebrity navel-gazing. This is the ultimate lesson from How it ends, a new comedy from writer-directors Zoe Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein who stars as It is the end without self-awareness, or maybe a better medicine Melancholy. In the absence of the qualities that made these films memorable, all that remains is the egocentric assumption that everyone you know would spend their last day on Earth waiting for you to show up. This is what happens throughout the picaresque wanderlust that Liza (Lister-Jones) goes through in a leafy residential Los Angeles neighborhood, tying all of her emotional ends with a parade of her famous friends before a comet strikes. kill all living things on the planet.

A title card at the end announces How it ends as a production of the COVID era, but savvy viewers will figure it out much sooner. There are the eerily deserted streets, first of all, as well as the fact that Liza’s interactions with the quirky characters she meets on her walk are all outside. and six feet apart. Most of them are one-on-one or rather one-on-one, as Liza is masked throughout the film by a bodily manifestation of her inner child played by Easttown mareby Cailee Spaeny. Their ultimate destination is a party hosted by Mandy (Whitney Cummings), Liza’s girlfriend, who turns out not to be the unbridled bacchanal you might expect in the hours leading up to the global catastrophe, but a few dozen people. standing in socially distant groups, chatting and clutching plastic cups as if they were going out for a drink before an early call time the next morning. Are all catastrophes created equal? The film never tries to explain why a comet rushing towards Earth produces the same behavior as a pandemic lockdown.

The general lack of panic about the end of the world is ostensibly a running gag, but the comedy is pitched at such a low volume it’s hard to hear. It seems safe to assume that Lister-Jones is making fun of herself, or the hipsters in LA more generally, by playing a woman who is terminally apathetic and unimpressed. But whether her stage partner matches her listless energy or tries to bounce a more dynamic character, the results are disappointing. There’s no air in the balloon, so to speak, which means all the laughs that Nick Kroll, Ayo Edebiri, Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, Paul Downs, Whitney Cummings, Olivia Wilde, Colin Hanks and Fred Armisen (among others) can squeak about their cameo appearances despite the setup, not because of it.

Take the scene where Liza recites the lyrics to “You Oughta Know” in front of a cheating ex’s window, performed by Lamorne Morris. Laughing at his own joke after spontaneously bursting out “I’m here to remind you,” Lister-Jones categorically goes through the chorus of the Alanis Morissette struck, before stopping with self-mockeryraise your shoulders. A beat passes, they look at each other in silence and Morris continues the scene. The same thing happens when Liza confronts her emotionally stunted father, played by Bradley Whitford. The two engage in a little cathartic cry therapy; then, as if he realized there’s nowhere to go for a chat, she just … leaves.

How it ends is full of original stylistic flourishes – a double blow to the Spike Lee here, a spontaneous dance sequence there. Some of the rare world-building details, like the scene where a friend of Liza’s describes everything the CIA declassified on the last day of its existence, are even slightly funny. But while Lister-Jones seems quite affable, “slightly fun” is as engaging as How it ends gets. Most of the time, the film is obsessed with Liza’s personal damage, ultimately leading us to the beach for a literal therapy exercise where the heroine recognizes and validates her youth so that she can let go of her past and enjoy her last night on Earth. It’s like someone telling you their dreams: if it’s someone you know intimately and love approximately, it’s fascinating. But if it’s just a lady – coming through LA, in mom jeans and a fringed shirt, as the case may be – then who cares?