Endings, Beginnings (2020) - Movie Review

This is gonna be a case of ‘careful what I wish for’ for me as… to be honest, on the day I’m writing this review, I’m not exactly in the best of moods. I know that my general worries about lockdown and COVID and all that fun stuff have been seeping more and more into my writings (both here and in my write-ups for FilmInk), but between that and some personal shit that just happened to occur earlier today for me… I need something light. Something simple. Something I can turn on for some basic comfort. And in fairness, that is what I got. Unfortunately, that’s all that I got.

The casting is essentially the main reason why I decided to check this specific film out as, after seeing both Shailene Woodley and Jamie Dornan attached to two particularly egregious trilogies over the last handful of years, I wanted to see them function in an environment that actually deserves their talents for a change. They and Sebastian Stan, the three of whom serve as the love triangle at the heart of this romantic drama, work rather well next to each other, and the improvised nature of their dialogue and delivery gives it a certain stab at realism that is definitely refreshing to see, as someone who’s railed against rom-com clichés for so long.

However, in that improv looseness lies the big problem with this story: It’s too loose. In its attempt to feel closer to real-life drama than the more traditional fabrication found in movies like this, it arguably went too far in that direction and made the events we’re watching as aimless as our own lives. Like, I know that this is a bit of a poncy point to bring up, but that’s part of the reason why people engage with fiction, films in particular: More times than not, they offer more direction and resolution that you’ll find in the average person’s own timeline. Or, at least, it’s dramatised so that it gives that impression.

But here… honestly, so damn much of this just slid right off my brain, to the point where I’ve pretty much already forgotten most, if not all, of what even happened in this. Considering I usually write these reviews immediately after watching the movie in question, that’s not a good sign. Thankfully, I still have a fair bit to say about why this didn’t work for me; namely, the presentation. Beyond just the attempts at naturalism in the dialogue, Garret Price’s editing really annoyed me throughout. It’s so awkward and keeps presenting the actors as if they’re delivering voice-over (when they actually aren’t) that it ends up killing whatever scrap of emotion I could get out of this to begin with.

Yeah, Woodley is as dependable as always, Stan as the bad/sad boi worked alright, Dornan sporting his natural accent is quite appealing, and the way the film plays around a bit with the stable vs. adventurous dichotomy behind a lot of romance films (everything down to the fact that they even fuck differently) is occasionally interesting. But all of that is still a modicum of entertainment in what ultimately feels like a big 100-minute void, where the title feels like a cruel joke since nothing here feels like the ending or the beginning of anything.