If you’re going to watch any Anne Hathaway-nearly-gets-eaten-by-dinosaurs movie this year, it should be The End of Oak Street (now on HBO Max). This slightly expensive sleeperish hit — $90 millionish budget, $122 million at the box office — marks the return of talented director David Robert Mitchell, which should pique the interest of fans of his other work, the endearing misfire Under the Silver Lake, and more notably, 2014 new horror classic It Follows. His first film in eight years — FAR too long, mind you — is nutty as hell and far from perfect, but it also might be one of the most entertaining things you’ll see all year.
The Gist: TROUBLE IN SUBURBIA, and we’re not even at the dinosaur invasion yet. It’s 1982, for no good reason beyond nostalgic Amblin vibes, not that anyone’s complaining. “Divorce” is the unspoken but omnipresent word in the Platt house. Denise (Hathaway) is the mom, secretly writing a novel about a discontented suburban mother who’s feeling suffocated by family life. Greg (Ewan McGregor) is the dad, lying that he’s delivering pizzas for extra cash because he’s too afraid to tell the fam that he lost his Real Job. Dysfunction!
Their teenage kids often eye Mom and Dad worriedly. Audrey (Maisy Stella) idolizes Carl Sagan and wants to study astronomy at Cornell. Her younger brother Brian (Christian Convery) is still in his post-Stand By Me mild delinquency days; his Gen Xer free-neighborhood roaming, archery set on his back, finds him busting a kid’s arm, and therefore the target of revenge. Brian’s beloved pup Starbuck is similarly scruffy, a blue heeler who likes to dig under the fence and shit in the yard next door, belonging to an uptight shitheel (P.J. Byrne).
Idyllic, the scene is not. The Platts are united adversaries of Mr. Shitheel, but something more substantive needs to happen to bring this family together. Would dinosaurs work? Probably! Some strange phenomena occurs — bright lights, odd plant life, absolutely massive piles of poo — and then KAFLUMP, the Platts soon learn that their entire neighborhood has been supplanted smack in the middle of an ancient jungle overrun by massive furry-feathered reptile-birds, turtlezillas and one ornery-ass allosaurus. A little less than ideal for the Platts, but for us? Bring it on!
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Spielberg is the obvious touchstone here, although in a much less obvious way than, say, the shameless pastiche of Super 8 (notably, J.J. Abrams is an Oak Street producer). So take the obvious, Jurassic Park, and leaven it with the specter of divorce that hovers over E.T.
Performance Worth Watching: Hathaway does some seriously heavy lifting here, bringing authenticity to the domestic drama at the same time she’s put through the wringer during intense action sequences.
Sex And Skin: Does dinosaur intercourse count?
Our Take: Damn dog. He keeps prompting our characters to make poor decisions. Do we blame them for throwing caution to the wind to save Starbuck? He’s feisty and, of course, cute, and doesn’t deserve to be some dino’s snack. Crucially, poking holes in this plot doesn’t devalue The End of Oak Street as quality entertainment; it’s far too wily in its construction and execution to let logical inconsistencies derail it. Mitchell takes the time to develop his characters and their interpersonal dramas so we’re invested in what happens to them, which is a lot. A whole lot. So much, I hesitate to throw around words like “twist” or “surprise” or “gut punch” for fear of revealing that the movie is full of those things. But that’s the truth.
Mitchell’s direction is brilliant and dynamic, great teases leading to satisfying reveals in a series of memorable set pieces featuring convincing visual effects and inspired creature design; these sometimes furry or feathered creatures don’t map onto trad dino templates (and here I can’t help but mention the gargantuan albino snake, which is some rather potent nightmare fuel). His detailed scene-setting translates to rock-solid storytelling with several moments of effective comedy, and even stronger instances of horror that inspire laughter to break the tension — or out of disbelief. E.g., the ending, which is endearingly nutty, a love-it-or-hate-it conclusion that I found admirable for defying expectations. Sure, Oak Street is contrived and sometimes quite silly, but you’ll be too amused and swept up in the action to care.
Our Call: Unlike far too many films, The End of Oak Street holds our attention from start to finish, and gets out in 99 minutes. I was transported. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.
