by Robert Bouffard, Editor
Jesse Eisenberg has all but made a living off playing the awkward guy. He plays different flavors of that character, between the narcissism of The Social Network, the geekiness of Zombieland, or the muted, feebleness of The Art of Self-Defense. To great success, Eisenberg brings that patented awkwardness to his feature directorial debut, When You Finish Saving the World.
Here, we follow Ziggy (Finn Wolfhard), a high school student who cares more about streaming his music for his fans on the film’s equivalent of Twitch than he does about just about anything else. His music isn’t particularly deep, but he describes himself as a vacation for his fans, rather than the type of artist who’s going to stimulate thinking or inspire social change. This is much to the chagrin of his mother Evelyn (Julianne Moore), a former political activist who now runs a shelter for domestic abuse survivors. Evelyn would rather Ziggy’s music have a purpose — it’s the reason she bought him a guitar in the first place.
Ziggy finally shows interest in politics, though, when he develops a crush on Lila (Alisha Boe), a politically active girl at school (and by interest, I mean that he wants the façade of talking about politics to impress Lila). Meanwhile, Evelyn meets Angie (Eleonore Hendricks) and Kyle (Billy Bryk), a mother and son who are moving into the shelter. Noticing how bright, kind, and able Kyle is, Evelyn develops a fascination with him; basically, she sees him as the son she’s always wanted.
From here is where Eisenberg mines all of his discomfort: Both Ziggy and Evelyn are presenting as people they’re not to try to get close to people who could barely have less interest in them. Ziggy tells Lila he cares about political issues, but he only does so out of a desire to see more subscribers to his channel (he has 20,000 of them; he vapidly tells every person he meets at least once, without a real care for whatever they have to say). And Evelyn, feeling as though the opportunity is gone for Ziggy, wants to get Kyle to go to college, even though Kyle is perfectly content working at his dad’s auto shop. As the husband and father of the household (Jay O. Sanders) puts it, he’s living with a couple of narcissists.
Eisenberg brings his cringe, but it’s only thanks to excellent, committed performances from Wolfhard and Moore that the tone works at all. Breaking out of his loud Stranger Things/It personality, Wolfhard’s disaffected quirkiness brings out how obliviously shallow of a person Ziggy is (at one point, he says, “Happy Fourth of July, or Independence Day, whatever that means.”). The character is at times overwritten, though — it may have fared better if Eisenberg had let Wolfhard do his thing, instead of adding extra lines of dialogue to show just how obnoxious his is.
Moore, meanwhile, is grating. But in a good way. Each one of her actions and lines of dialogue reeks of someone who has long ago lost their way, but also is much too oblivious to even realize it. Moore gives Evelyn an impressive controlled mania, and you’re never quite sure what uncomfortable thing she’ll say next.
When You Finish Saving the World perhaps wraps up a bit too neatly and abruptly, but it’s still a nice, brisk movie about oblivious narcissists becoming not so oblivious, and not so narcissistic. Ultimately, the title is fitting: This family finds time for each other once they finish “saving the world.” That’s all that matters in the end.
Score: 8/10
When You Finish Saving the World will be in theaters on January 20
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