Anyone can make a movie. I’ve watched so many of them at this point that I know it to be true. Yes, a director will have to work their way into making something like The Odyssey. But It Ends is a perfect example of how to start that filmmaking journey, for about the average salary of an adult in the United States.
All you need is 4 friends, a great idea, and a Jeep Cherokee. Tyler (Mitchell Cole) is back in town, enjoying a brief stint with his aimless twentysomething friends before he leaves again. Fisher (Noah Toth) and Day (Akira Jackson) are excited to hang out again and raise those stupid “Who would win in a fight a deer or a falcon?” questions, but James (Phinehas Yoon) is more caustic, here to button push for his own enjoyment. Tyler takes a shortcut down a forested area, on the lookout for a left turn. Except, a left turn never comes; in fact, NO other turn ever comes.
It’s definitely a helluva idea. Those 20s are the separator years for a friend group. Some people grow and change into their next phases. Others are content to live in the past or present, putting life on hold for various reasons. Alexander Ullom literalizes that feeling, putting Tyler, Fisher, Day, and James in a perpetual state of arrested development together. Using the simple logic of trip miles on the barometer, Ullom shows how this state affects each of these 4 as they start to realize they might be stuck here forever. As you might expect: some are willing to make peace with the situation sooner than others. Some might adapt in hopes to buy time for an answer, and yet others gutturally might find this new loop almost a religious experience that gives them real purpose they didn’t possess. It’s a clever way to show that time and growth is never uniform for any person: they grow and evolve at their own pace in their own unique ways. And not all that growth is healthy: some get really agitated and mean so they don’t have to confront their own insecurities on the Jeep Cherokee based life they inadvertently found themselves in.
I had my doubts about It Ends, well, being unending, but Alexander Ullom really thought this thing through. He hooks us immediately on the first 10 minutes of the car ride, showing the approachable dynamics of this friend group and putting us in the car with them. You really feel this is the last time they’ll be together, as Tyler is on the precipice of adulthood, and all 3 know it, with James the most scared by change being thrust upon him. We learn in real time in the Cherokee like we’re the quiet 5th friend in the back. That first realization that something’s wrong is one of the film’s highlights, as Ullom ups the tension little by little. The movie then transforms into a mystery caper, then…well, something else entirely. The 4 unknowns prove Ullom can get the most out of a cast too. Phinehas Yoon is the standout, giving a very insular performance that grows and grows as James goes farther and farther. He tries so hard to be a cool friend to everyone, but has so much tumult underneath that slowly bubbles to the surface as each mile goes by. Mitchell Cole is Yoon’s equal and opposite: also insular, but more assuredly so, realizing that this friend group was fun for a while but now ready for something different, de facto making him feel like the queen bee. Akira Jackson and Noah Toth release some of It Ends’s tension, giving human performances that add warmth to scenes dearly in need of happiness and joy Cole and Yoon can’t really provide.
It Ends eventually does, and does so on a perfect note. I can’t wait to see what Alexander Ullom does with even a little more money. Hopefully he’s full of ideas as good as this one. If not, he can at least make It Ends 2 with an Escalade for a more badass feel to it I guess.