The End of Oak Street
Reviewed by Jeremy Elwood
Sometimes the poster says it all. Ewen McGregor and Anne Hathaway, clad in throwback casual wear, are running from a dinosaur. That’s it. That’s the movie.
That’s not a criticism. There’s nothing wrong with thinking “hey, what if we took a 1980’s suburban family, and made them fight giant lizards?” Plenty of films have been made on less. But the question I struggled with for much of the sub-100-minute runtime of The End of Oak Street was this – who, exactly, is this film for? Most of it is a straight-up family adventure flick, but there are enough flashes of gore and, um, “sex”, to earn it an M rating. And then I clicked. This is for people who love the vibe of the 1980’s, but didn’t actually live through them. People who came late to The Goonies, but are old enough to appreciate a jump scare. In a word, Millennials.
In film and TV, the 80’s are the new 50’s. Recent releases like Totally Killer, Joker and now The End of Oak Street are doing exactly what Back to The Future, Stand by Me and Dirty Dancing did in their time; setting their adventures in what can be perceived as a more innocent time, with a fun aesthetic, and occasionally exploring darker themes.
Perhaps the clearest example is Stephen King’s It; while the 1986 book was set in the 1950’s, the more recent film and TV adaptations move things to the 80’s.
In The End of Oak Street, director David Robert Mitchell has lovingly recreated his own youth. A post-credit photograph, clearly shot during the period, dedicates the film to his father, and he paints a pretty authentic picture for those of us who actually spent summers in North America at the time. None of the Day-Glo neon cliches that dominate retro parties today, but rather the far less garish beige and denim-blue palettes of everyday clothing, and the faux-wood panelling that completely dominated suburban interior design. Even on a technical level, it’s a throwback. There are several conversational shots, with the speaker’s face framed tight to one side of the screen, that recall a Tears for Fears music video, and while the visual effects are fun, they never threaten to make you gasp, the way that Jurassic Park did in the early 1990s. The setting doesn’t act as a plot device, it isn’t there for camp or cringe, it’s just…there.
And therein lies the film’s main problem. It’s just…there. It sits somewhere between parody and po-faced seriousness, without ever truly committing to either. The family drama exists, but is never entirely explored or resolved. There are brief attempts to address the science behind what’s going on, and even the religious connotations, but they pass quickly.
Hathaway and McGregor are as likeable as usual (although even after all his years in Hollywood, Ewen McGregor’s American accent is a stretch), but their dynamic – suburban housewife who dreams of more, and husband struggling to provide for his family – doesn’t run deep. Their kids (Maisy Stella and Christian Convery) are, mercifully, a step up from the typical screaming liabilities that creature-features throw in, and drive the story at least as much as their parents do.
For a nostalgia-tinged dinosaur flick, it’s totally fine. But if you’re really looking for a great family adventure movie, plenty of better ones exist. Many of them made during the actual 80’s.