Top photo caption: Christian Convery (left) as Brian Platt, Anne Hathaway as Denise Platt and Maisy Stella as Audrey Platt in “The End of Oak Street,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. The OSV News classification is A-III – adults. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG-13 – parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. OSV News photo/Daniel McFadden, courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
By John Mulderig, OSV News
NEW YORK OSV News — Gosh darn those pesky wormholes! One day, you’re living in the safety of an early 1980s suburb and the next you find that your entire neighborhood has somehow been transported to the era when dinosaurs roamed — and ruled — the Earth.
Such, at least, is the fate that befalls the four members of the Platt family, the central figures in the suspenseful sci-fi drama “The End of Oak Street” (Warner Bros.). It’s mostly the toll the dinos exact on a host of lesser characters and extras, however, that restricts the appropriate audience for this unsparing look at life on the bottom of the food chain.
Even before their bizarrely dangerous situation arises, life for the Platts is not exactly idyllic. Unbeknownst to dad Greg (Ewan McGregor), mom Denise (Anne Hathaway) has written an all-too-autobiographical novel about a woman who longs to free herself of family responsibilities and achieve her creative destiny on her own.
As for Greg, he too has secrets, including a bottle of booze he keeps stashed in the garage a la Mrs. Robinson and her pantry. Another source of tension is Greg’s sideline as a pizza delivery man, a form of moonlighting Denise finds both undignified and an intrusion on time he should be spending at home.
All this leads to an amount of intense quarrelling that has left older teen daughter Audrey (Maisy Stella) and newly adolescent son Brian (Christian Convery) wondering if their parents are heading for a divorce. Needless to say, they’ll soon be preoccupied with other problems.
As a variety of giant creatures test the clan’s survival skills, family bonds are strengthened in the face of mortal danger. The Platts also eventually offer their protection to Jeannette (Jordan Alexa Davis), a newcomer to the area who’s about the same age as Audrey and whom the disaster has left a distraught orphan.
Graphic depictions of virtually helpless humans being dismembered or gnawed on make writer-director David Robert Mitchell’s adventure story too strong for youngsters and perhaps for some grown-ups as well. While the script’s underlying values are in order, moreover, a plot development implicitly aligns one portion of the tale more with current morals than Biblical ones.
Although it’s neither verbalized nor acted on, at least on screen, a twinkle-in-the-eye lesbian romance unmistakably arises between Audrey and Jeannette. This is treated quite anachronistically given the changes in social attitudes over the last four-plus decades. But it’s also kept far in the background of the main action.
Another ambiguous element in the movie is the screenplay’s attitude toward faith. Both Greg and Brian express their belief in the existence of God with Greg further asserting his trust in divine protection. Denise shoots Greg down by pointing out that he only goes to Church at Christmas while Audrey wonders why God wasn’t protecting the people who’ve already died.
This becomes a symptom of the split between the male and female Platts, the former being far more optimistic about a happy ending than the latter. The narrative never comes down definitively on either side. But the implication that religious belief can be a source of hope is at least interesting.
Of course, all these matters take a backseat to the frantic scramble to avoid becoming Cretaceous-style kibble. Whatever the ultimate outcome of that struggle, a strongly worded letter to the homeowners association would seem to be in order.
The film contains harsh violence with considerable gore, including scenes of torturous death, a vaguely implied but benignly viewed same-sex relationship, a sequence with animal mating played for laughs, a slightly irreverent joke, several mild oaths, a single use of rough language, about a dozen crude terms and occasional crass dialogue. The OSV News classification is A-III – adults. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG-13 – parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
John Mulderig is media reviewer for OSV News. Follow him on X @JohnMulderig1.