Review: Endings, Beginnings

Drake Doremus seems like the kind of director who doesn't seem all that interested in what his scripts are about so long as they give him the chance to create a particular mood. That's probably a little unfair: the kind of mood he's usually looking to create is one of romantic longing, so clearly he's not rushing to get hired for the next Bad Boys sequel (though if that franchise were to take a surprise twist, who knows...).

His most successful film to date remains Like Crazy, a romantic drama in which a young couple are put through the wringer because one of them decides to overstay his visa (to stay with his girlfriend, obviously), only to discover that's totally screwed over his chances of returning to the country to be with her.

Having a decent plot that justifies Doremus's fondness for arty shots of attractive young people looking sad is a large factor in its success; every film he's made since then (yes, even the one where Ewan McGregor falls in love with a robot) has had an increasingly slapdash feel to it.

In the case of Endings, Beginnings, that's kind of the point; largely improvised with the help of the cast, it's clearly more about being a free-wheeling character study of a young woman (Shallene Woodley) at a turning point in her life than it is about a gripping plot packed with twists. Which is exactly the kind of film you want Doremus to be making.

Daphne (Woodley) has just broken up with her seemingly perfect boyfriend for reasons even she can't seem to articulate and moved back into her sister's pool house. Her models for relationships aren't great: her sister's relation may be abusive, while her mother didn't exactly provide stability either. Then one night at one of her sister's parties she meets Jack (Jamie Dorman), a kindly Irish writer, and Frank (Sebastian Stan), a fiery bad boy. Who to choose? And they're also best friends!

It's a moderately interesting dilemma that holds few surprises. It's no spoiler to reveal that the moral of the story is that girls like the nice guys but they'll sleep with the bad boys, and this does contain a number of what counts as graphic sex scenes for an American film in 2020. But the focus is firmly on Daphne and her journey to a place where she can move forward with love in her life, and both men are really just ways for her to figure out what she really wants.

Doremus is a solid stylist in the underappreciated "films that look like an expensive car commercial" genre, and while that sounds like a cheap shot it's more a recognition of how advertising has colonised a certain strand of emotion-based film-making. Looked at a particular way, Terrance Malick's films also feel like expensive car commercials, and so while the story may occasionally feel like it's spinning its wheels. the visuals always do an impressive job of keeping the emotions we're meant to be feeling on solid ground.

The only real problem with all this is that Daphne herself isn't that interesting. Her dilemma is largely abstract, especially once it becomes clearer exactly why she left her ex. Even purely as fun wish fulfillment (which this clearly is to some extent) it's often not much more than eye candy; while she's torn between two hot guys that's not really a tough problem to have when both of them constantly make sure to respect her feelings and boundaries.

Like a lot of stories that are made up as they go along, it reaches a point where the drama just runs out.

- Anthony Morris