A 70-mile-wide asteroid is en route to Earth, and the last best attempt to counter it has failed. Also failing is the marriage of insurance salesman Dodge - the breaking news that the World will end in an estimated 21 days prompts his wife to leave him on the spot. When his neighbour, Penny, belatedly delivers Dodge a lost letter from Olivia, his high-school sweetheart, the two join together to travel to their loved ones to see the final days. For Penny, it's getting to England to be with her family, for Dodge, it's rekindling a flame he and Olivia once had. On the road together, the unlikely traveling companions’ respective personal journeys accelerate, and their outlooks on life - if not the world’s - brighten...

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is a bitter-sweet comedy starring Steve Carrell and Keira Knightley as two neighbours who are thrown together and have to help one another to reach their final destination at the end of days. For Dodge (Carrell) the destination is in another State in order to meet up with his high school sweetheart, for Penny (Knightley) it's to somehow charter a plane to fly her to England so she can be with her family. Dodge doesn't have a car, but he does know someone who has a plane for hire. So he promises Penny he will get her to her family before the asteroid wipes out all life on Earth, if she will drive him to see his old girlfriend.

Along the way they meet up with several larger than life characters. These include a trucker (played by CSI's William Petersen) who has hired a hitman to kill him because he can't stand the thought of being alive when the asteroid hits; the staff and patrons of Friendsy's, a themed diner where the theme seems to be sex and drugs; and an old boyfriend of Penny's who is more than prepared for the end of civilisation.

It's another film that panders to old men's fantasies. Carrell is 50 at the time of writing this review, while Knightley is only 27. There are a few subtle 'different generation' jokes, but to be fair their growing friendship comes out of the fact that the two are thrust together in this strange new world where people have started acting oddly and heightened by the fact that the clock is ticking down.

While the comedy is soft and sweet, and the twists and turns predictable but enjoyable, it's the movie's final scenes, with the asteroid bearing down on the planet, that will have you looking back on the rest of the film with more fondness than it probably deserves. It's then that you realise that like Dodge/Penny, you've come to know these characters over the brief course of the movie and you've grown fond of them too - you don't want to say goodbye to them just as you're beginning to like them.

Extras include Outtakes (8 min, 36 sec gag reel); A Look Inside Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (4 min, 57 sec collection of clips from the film and interviews with cast and crew); Music for the End of the World: What's on Your Playlist (2 min, 15 sec look at what music some of those involved with the film would chose to listen to as the end of the World grew closer); and Trailer (2 min, 30 sec).

While not an overly deep or meaningful movie, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is sweet and moving.

8

Darren Rea