“The End of Oak Street” is a wonderful challenge to all those who say they don’t make movies like they used to: the kind of high concept original family adventure that dominated the box office in decades past but has since flirted with extinction. Director David Robert Mitchell delivers a sensitive and mature story that treats every member of the family unit as a main character, with their own personality and needs, who must come together to get through unbelievable challenges, while offering the audience a nostalgic good time.
The Platts are a picture-perfect American family, laughing together in the idyllic suburbia that is their neighborhood’s annual summer celebration. Behind this picture of familial bliss, each member struggles with their lot in life. Brian (Christian Convery), 13, is acting out, drawing the ire of neighborhood bullies while Audrey (Maisy Stella), 18, struggles with her identity and doubts about her future after graduation. And the parents, Greg (Ewan McGregor) and Denise (Anne Hathaway), think they are hiding their struggles but their children notice that they do more fighting than laughing since Greg lost his job.
And in the background of this domestic turmoil, the radio makes passing mention of ripples in space of unknown origin and with unknown effect.
After a blinding light and a particularly violent storm, Oak Street and the surrounding neighborhood loses all power and utilities. Come morning, when Greg and Denise go outside to check on their neighbors, they find their street crawling with predatory dinosaurs with no escape in sight.
Mitchell keeps the pace humming, establishing the family, their struggles and every supporting character with an admirable economy of storytelling to move right along to the dinosaur-infused mayhem. He wields a perfect tone, offering plenty of genre delights for the whole family without condescending to children, depicting legitimate scares and trusting that an audience of all ages can handle it.
“The End of Oak Street” is a wonderful stylistic fusion of two 1980s auteurs. Its story of a suburban family thrown into a sci-fi survival adventure reads Steven Spielberg while the cinematography, with its roving camera and myriad split diopter shots – using a lens that keeps two subjects at different distances in focus while the space between them remains blurry – is pure Brian De Palma. In addition, Mitchell wields the horror skills developed on “It Follows” to craft moments of thrilling suspense, showing threats to the audience but not his character such that we sit on the edge of our seats, waiting for the inevitable violence.
As different shades of an unfulfilled domestic life play out on screen, the entire cast brings this family to life with believable chemistry, believable problems and believable joy. McGregor and Hathaway have moments of laughter over pizza with their kids even as their marriage disintegrates. The family’s bickering is constant, and relatable, like when the 13-year-old is visibly uncomfortable telling his sister he loves her, even in the face of death. With the family so well developed, their life-or-death decisions are all the more impactful and emotional.
While the bar may not be particularly high, “The End of Oak Street” is certainly the best dinosaur movie since the original “Jurassic Park.” Like that classic, this film tells a grounded and human story, using the science-fiction premise to challenge the characters and shake them out of their stagnant lives.
I found myself transported along with the Pratts and their entire block, exhilarated and horrified and most of all grateful for Mitchell’s original vision, which demonstrates that existing IP is not needed to deliver a satisfying adventure story.
A version of this review was posted at Curt On The Movies.
“The End of Oak Street” Rated PG-13 for some strong violent content, bloody images, some strong language and suggestive material. Running Time: 1 hour and 39 minutes. Directed by David Robert Mitchell. Written by David Robert Mitchell. Starring Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella and Christian Convery. Genres: Action, Adventure, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller.
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