Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Matthew Arnold, Freddie Wong
Starring: Ashly Burch, Jordan Rodrigues, Willow Hale, Alexander
Chard
I'm not sure if directors Matthew Arnold and
Freddie Wong shot their feature debut
We're All Gonna Die during COVID, but it certainly feels
like a product of the pandemic. Using a sci-fi conceit, it examines how
two disparate characters cope with the grieving process in a world
rendered uncertain by an unforeseen catastrophe.
An opening montage of news reports details how a large alien structure
in the form of a giant spike lands on Earth. Rather than staying in one
place, the spike "jumps" from one location to another in a random
fashion, displacing the geographical landscape and causing significant human
casualties as it does so.
12 years after the spike's arrival we find beekeeper Thalia (Ashly Burch) on the third anniversary of the death of her husband and daughter.
While other family members visit their graves, Thalia can't bring
herself to join in. Meanwhile Kai (Jordan Rodrigues) is mourning
the more recent death of his best friend, whose car has now become his
home as he can't afford the rent on the apartment they shared.
On her way to deliver beehives across the country, Thalia runs into
Kai. The pair enjoy some flirting before the spike has one of its
"jumps," displacing both Kai's friend's car and Thalia's beehives. A
bottle of beer from a micro-brewery that pops up leads the pair to
surmise that their respective possessions are now in the vicinity of the
town named on the bottle, and so they set off on a quest to find them
together.
The film then becomes a typical "Will they, won't they?" road movie as
Thalia and Kai bicker their way across several states. The tension feels
manufactured however, as we had previously seen how attracted they were
to one another, with Kai asking Thalia to dinner and Thalia entranced by
Kai's well-toned physique. The movie can't quite decide if its
protagonists are best buds or sworn enemies, so it's difficult for the
audience to get a grasp on their confusing dynamic. Burch and Rodrigues
have the sort of easy chemistry that suggests they're friends in real
life, which makes their arguments unconvincing.
Arnold and Wong come from a web series background, and
We're All Gonna Die is decidedly episodic in its
structure, as road movies tend to be. Kai and Thalia come across various
characters but none of them leave a a lasting impression. Well, not in a
positive sense – a pair of teenage slackers who seem to have escaped
from a Kevin Smith movie prove intensely annoying.
We're All Gonna Die drops its sci-fi conceit early on and
becomes a relatively grounded road romance. The spike is seen looming on
the horizon throughout, but it never plays a role until the climax. It's
in the final 15 minutes that We're All Gonna Die returns
to the interesting concept it established in its opening, and we finally
get the examination of grief the movie initially promised.
There's a devastatingly impactful line delivered late on by Thalia
about her struggles to process grief – "Every time I remember them I
lose them all over again" – which only makes us wish the movie had
gotten into this heady territory earlier on. The closing minutes have a
genuine emotional heft, but it's scant reward for the rambling inanity
we've had to endure to get to that point.
