Home at the End of the World

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Directed by Michael Mayer and based on The Hours author Michael Cunningham's novel of the same name, A Home at the End of the World chronicles the 1980s reunion of childhood best friends Bobby (Colin Farrell) and Jonathan (Dallas Roberts). Where they were once best pals -- and teenage lovers -- in the suburbs of Cleveland, Bobby has become a charismatic but go-nowhere heterosexual slacker, and Jonathan is now living as an openly gay man in New York City, hoping to serve as father to his eccentric roommate Clare's (Robin Wright Penn) child. When Bobby impulsively moves to the city to be closer to his former friend, their bonds are tested sooner than anyone would have thought. Bobby falls for Clare, and in doing so, effectively eliminates what would have been Jonathan's position in the baby's life. Jonathan temporarily takes off; when his father dies, and he attends the Arizona funeral, Bobby and Clare unexpectedly turn up with the news that she's expecting. Despite the still-existent tensions, the trio becomes a family unit among themselves, ultimately buying a house in Woodstock, Upstate New York, where they all move together, challenging traditional notions of family, commitment, love, and devotion. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 1
• Screen: Letterbox for TV
• Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
• Features:
  • cc
  • Theatrical trailer

AWARDS

• National Board of Review

•     Won Special Recognition for Excellence in Filmmaking - 2004

• Venice International Film Festival

•     Film Presented - 2004

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Colin Farrell - Bobby Morrow
       Robin Wright Penn - Clare
       Dallas Roberts - Jonathan Glover
       Sissy Spacek - Alice Glover
       Erik Scott Smith - Bobby (1974)
       Harris Allan - Jonathan (1974)
       Andrew Chalmers - Bobby (1967)
       Ryan Donowho - Carlton Morrow
       Joshua Close - Reiner

• Director:

  Michael Mayer

• Producer:

  Tom Hulce, Pamela Koffler, John Wells, Christine Vachon, Katie Roumel, John Hart, Jeff Sharp

• Screenwriter:

  Keith Bunin, Michael Cunningham

• Book Author:

  Michael Cunningham

• Cinematographer:

  Enrique Chediak

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Linda Cohen

• Composer (Music Score):

  Duncan Sheik

• Editor:

  Lee Percy

• Production Designer:

  Michael Shaw

• Art Director:

  Edward Bonutto

• Co-producer:

  Bradford Simpson, Robert Kessel, Jocelyn Hayes Simpson, Julia Rask

• Executive Producer:

  John Sloss, Michael Hogan

• Set Designer:

  Mark Steel

• Costume Designer:

  Beth Pasternak

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Douglas Ganton

• First Assistant Director:

  Jeffrey Steven Authors

• Casting:

  Robin D. Cook, Jim Carnahan

• Line Producer:

  James Powers

REVIEW:

• The title A Home at the End of the World gives off both an optimistic and a pessimistic vibe, simultaneously, which is appropriate for a film that can't figure out what its tone should be. For example, the plot follows the protagonist (Colin Farrell's Bobby) through the deaths of a half-dozen important family members and friends, yet Duncan Sheik's dopey score is better suited to an annoyingly whimsical romantic comedy. That dopiness is, however, well suited to Farrell's performance. Despite the succession of traumas his character endures, his attitude rarely changes from that of a pseudo-hippie naif. It's hard to tell whether that's a reflection on director Michael Mayer's vision for the character, or Farrell's limitations as an actor, but it rings terribly false. Other than these traumas, the plot focuses almost exclusively on a soggy love triangle between Bobby, his childhood best friend/love interest, Jonathan (Dallas Roberts), and the wacky artist (Robin Wright Penn) Jonathan lives with sort-of platonically, whose hair is dyed a different color in every scene. The only performer among these that registers, even remotely, is Roberts, while Wright Penn throws out all her best instincts, playing the character as absurdly indistinct and shallow. Meanwhile, the action gets side-tracked by red herrings, such as the apparent physical attraction between Bobby and his surrogate mother (Sissy Spacek). While this never goes anywhere, the occasional presence of Spacek does distract us from the self-indulgent vagaries of the central trio. There are interesting ideas about sexuality, free love vs. monogamy, family and the AIDS crisis buried somewhere in A Home at the End of the World, screaming to get out. But since they are nullified by the film's overall banality, they remain homeless, as it were. ~ Derek Armstrong, Rovi