When You Finish Saving the World review
Jesse Eisenberg has made a solid career in front of the camera playing quirky, neurotic and somewhat unlikable characters. He’s not able to translate that into a thoughtful or especially interesting film with his directorial debut, When You Finish Saving the World.
Evelyn (Julianne Moore, Bel Canto) is at a crossroads with her son, Ziggy (Finn Wolfhard, Stranger Things). Callous and frequently mean-spirited, Ziggy has little time for Evelyn and his father, Roger (Jay O. Sanders). Ziggy only finds true enjoyment playing songs for his livestream followers and swooning over his high school crush, the politically minded activist, Lila (Aisha Boe, Yes, God, Yes).
After another rough interaction with Ziggy, Evelyn becomes enamored with Kyle (Billy Bryk, Ghostbusters: Afterlife), the doting son of a woman in need of shelter following a domestic violence incident. In Kyle, Evelyn sees the son she wishes she had — one who respected, listens and is even protective of his mother. That’s a far cry from Ziggy who yells obscenities and barges in on Evelyn while she’s taking a shower for daring to interrupt his livestream.
Encouraged by Kyle’s politeness, Evelyn starts taking a more aggressive interest in his life calling in favors to get him enrolled in college with scholarships. It’s a nice thought, but Evelyn is blinded by her desire to help a new project to grasp her vision for Kyle’s life and his plans aren’t matching up.
A big issue with the film is Ziggy is such an obnoxious trash of a person it’s hard to see why Evelyn didn’t attempt to “replace” him earlier. Wolfhard probably does too good a job of making Ziggy so awful and oblivious to anything outside of his bubble. This makes him look particularly idiotic when he starts trying to impress Lila by sharing his thoughts on global policies or endlessly droning on about his music.
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Of course, that’s just the surface problem. Eisenberg, expanding his 2020 Audible Original 2020 audio production script for the big screen, seems disinterred in explaining what fractured the bond between Evelyn and Ziggy in the first place.
Evelyn works at a shelter for abused women. While she’s awkward around her staff and somewhat distant, it’s clear she has a deep-rooted desire to help people even if she lacks the emotional warmth to thrive in the role. But it seems like at some point she just gave up on Ziggy.
Moore, an Oscar-winning Best Actress for Still Alice, doesn’t have a role nearly as meaty or nuanced leaving her stranded at times with a character in desperate need of further development.
Ziggy carries himself around the house like an entitled brat with little interest in talking to his parents. He makes significant alterations to the house, curses his parents out and spews harsh cruel insults at Evelyn with no fear of repercussion.
Something is missing from the script to fill in the gaps as to why Evelyn seems terrified of disciplining her son and why Roger and Evelyn let him run wild like a tyrant. Roger doesn’t have much presence at all and interacts with his books more than Evelyn or Ziggy. At least he does something for the household by fixing elaborate meals for dinner.
Eisenberg doesn’t help the flow of the film either with a score that comes off more like a clarion that won’t shut off.
There’s some potential here, but Eisenberg isn’t willing to expand on the areas that would make When You Finish Saving the World a compelling and engaging look at the generational divide.
Rating: 4 out of 10
Photo Credit: A24