The End of Oak Street

There is enough in the opening stretch of David Robert Mitchell’s The End of Oak Street to echo the Spielbergian blockbuster: the ‘80s American suburbia, chirpy adolescents on bikes, irritable siblings at the dining table and a seemingly-happy family unit led by parents going through a marital hairpin bend of their own. Denise Platt (Anne Hathaway) aspires to be a novelist and she is secretly working on something that seems borrowed heavily from her own family life. In the novel, she is considering a divorce. In real life, her husband Greg (Ewan McGregor), has just been laid off. He is working as a pizza delivery person, something Denise is not very happy about. However, as much as she tries to bury her disappointment, something extraordinary happens, forcing the family to reckon with their inner cracks.

For the foreseeable future, dinosaurs will not be going extinct in Hollywood. The challenge now is how to make this era meet that era. Writer-director David Robert Mitchell (with the impressive It Follows behind him), has half an idea to pull this off. Since it involves a wormhole, and “ripples in space”, it’s just as well that he doesn’t labour the point too much. But then, labouring isn’t the strength of The End of Oak Street.

Produced by J.J. Abrams and directed by David Robert Mitchell (of It Follows, one of the better horror films of the century), The End of Oak Street is an old-fashioned survival thriller with a clear tribute to Steven Spielberg and his groundbreaking dinosaurs. Producer Abrams himself did a Spielberg pastiche with Super 8 (2011), a cross between E.T. (1982) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).

David Robert Mitchell’s Amblin-esque sci-fi survival thriller is a heartwarming, terrifying and thoroughly entertaining ode to Steven Spielberg and the magic of the ’80s. A frightening, unnatural event disrupts the slow, idyllic life of the Platt family. Without warning, their quiet suburban neighbourhood transforms into a dense forest inhabited by an army of deadly dinosaurs. Has time shifted their reality? And can they survive this bizarre catastrophe? Kids riding bikes, childhood spent outdoors with friends and neighbours instead of glued to gadgets, lazy afternoons on rooftops with books, families dining together and children believing they are safe as long as their parents are around — The End of Oak Street is a resounding ode to simpler times and the unconditional love of family. Its world is idyllic, dreamy and deliberately nostalgic.

The End Of Oak Street is the most fun I’ve had in a theatre this year. David Robert Mitchell’s dino fare brings ample suspense and heart into the vestiges of blockbuster commercial cinema trappings. It’s strewn with sequences that set my pulse racing and had me almost on the brink of whistles. Honestly, I have to scratch my memory real hard to even recall when a mainstream film got me jiving to its wavelength from the get go and refused to loosen the shackles. The End Of Oak Street is the definition of a proper, thrilling communal experience to get a film that exults in splendidly orchestrated moments. My regret is the theatre was much too empty to feel the ripples bounce across the breadth of the audience. Where are the moviegoers? You have been summoned.