In “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “E.T.,” Steven Spielberg effectively merged fantasy genres with a “Norman Rockwell” version of the American suburb. This combination was further developed in films he produced (“Poltergeist,” “The Goonies,” “Gremlins,” “Back to the Future”) and became an element closely associated with American cinema of the 1980s. In the “Jurassic Park” trilogy and its sequel trilogy, “Jurassic World,” the obvious connection between suburban Americana and dangerous animals was never made.
When dinosaurs entered a “normal” human environment, as opposed to Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna, it was done in a very limited and unsatisfying way. In “The End of Oak Street,” written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, the connection between dinosaurs and an ordinary human habitat is finally made — and made well. The film is not without flaws but offers successful and enjoyable cinematic entertainment, more so than any of the “Jurassic Park” sequels.
'The End of Oak Street' — Trailer
(Courtesy of Tulip Entertainment)
Mitchell has demonstrated an attraction to suburban settings in his previous work. From his debut film “The Myth of the American Sleepover” (2010), a nostalgic coming-of-age drama set in the Detroit suburbs, to the acclaimed horror film “It Follows” (2014), which was largely shot in this kind of environment. His most recent film, “Under the Silver Lake” (2018), was shot in a Los Angeles neighborhood with a bohemian-suburban character. It was an ambitious attempt to create a space of confusion and strangeness influenced by David Lynch.
The film failed commercially and received mostly negative reviews — putting Mitchell in “director jail” for eight years. Since then, “Under the Silver Lake” has, with considerable justification, been reevaluated. Now Mitchell has been given an opportunity to rehabilitate himself as a commercial filmmaker.
“The End of Oak Street” has a mid-range budget of $80 million. It is required to do a lot with a relatively small budget compared with those of the dinosaur trilogies. Adjusted for inflation, the three films in the “Jurassic Park” trilogy cost roughly twice as much, “Jurassic World” cost 2.5 times as much and the two films that concluded the second trilogy cost 7.5 times as much, at around $600 million each. It is questionable whether there are films that commercially and morally justify spending that much money on them, but certainly not these two.
It Follows. And this time, the something is a velociraptor. From 'The End of Oak Street'
(Photo: Courtesy of Tulip Entertainment)
Budget constraints may also be an advantage. Mitchell’s film is relatively short, at 99 minutes, and is forced to present the source of the threat in a more suggestive, partially concealed or indirect way. Don’t worry, you still see enough dinosaurs. There is also greater emphasis on the relationships between the family members under siege. This is not a multilayered, nuanced drama but compared with the standard for dinosaur movies, it is a significant improvement.
The exposition in “The End of Oak Street” could be conveyed with a bingo card of the cinematic 1980s suburb. Nothing is missing: the clothes, meticulous period design, a gang of children straight out of “The Goonies,” the community event, the “bully,” the girl who could become the object of a teenage crush and so on. The music by talented composer Michael Giacchino, who has worked on numerous Pixar films and the “Jurassic World” movies, is in constant dialogue with that of John Williams. It is a world of idyllic propriety as it probably never actually existed.
Of course, this is not merely a utopian bubble. In the classic narrative structure, cracks must appear that will turn what follows into a process of overcoming, processing and redemption. Mitchell and his regular cinematographer, Michael Gioulakis, frequently use split-diopter shots to create a visual representation of these cracks. The technique used by Brian De Palma, for example in “Blow Out,” to create a conspiratorial spatial design also comes from the vocabulary of American cinema of that period.
Run, Anne Hathaway! You have another 7,459 movies to star in this year! From 'The End of Oak Street'
(Photo: Courtesy of Tulip Entertainment)
From the outside, the Platt family appears to be perfect, but the father, Greg (Ewan McGregor), has lost his job and supplements the family income by delivering pizzas. The mother, Denise (Anne Hathaway), is embarrassed by the pizza sign attached to the family car and is becoming increasingly impatient with the way Greg hides things from her — such as his tendency to sneak an occasional drink of alcohol.
Denise is working on a book in which she reveals the wilder and less content side of family life. For example, she has a suitcase packed for the moment she decides to leave. She needs an opportunity to reassess her husband’s positive qualities and realize the repressed sides of her personality as a suburban mother. That is exactly what the time shifts that are about to throw the peaceful neighborhood of Flowerville into the Mesozoic era were invented for.
They have two children. The older daughter, Audrey (Maisy Stella), dreams of studying astronomy at Cornell because of her admiration for Carl Sagan. Brian (Christian Convery), 13, is very attached to the family dog, an Australian cattle dog named Starbuck. The unruly dog tends to relieve itself in the yard of the irritable neighbor, Mel (P.J. Byrne). Like Mrs. Gulch in “The Wizard of Oz,” the neighbor threatens to shoot the disobedient dog. Clearly, he is marked as the No. 1 appetizer once the dinosaurs arrive. Starbuck, meanwhile, will have an important role to play in trying to protect the family.
You said it was an iguana. I feel betrayed. From 'The End of Oak Street'
(Photo: Courtesy of Tulip Entertainment)
A series of flashes of light and increasingly strong hints that something strange is happening precede the time shift. There is a sort of scientific explanation offered by the Cornell-bound aspiring student, but it is not really important. For one reason or another, part of the peaceful reality, roughly three kilometers in diameter, is cut out and thrown into an era when almost everything wants to and can eat you.
The suburb’s horizon now features active volcanoes, while wild vegetation grows rapidly alongside manicured lawns. The way the dinosaurs are presented includes elements that were missing from the “Jurassic Park” films. By the second half of the 1990s, about half a decade after “Jurassic Park,” the scientific theory of feathered dinosaurs had been established, and some of them appear in the film. The movie also, remarkably, features dinosaur feces, which provides material for a joke or two, and even, heaven forbid, dinosaur mating, depicted rather decorously.
There is plenty of humor in keeping with the spirit of light fantasy, but the family finds itself in a survival situation. As the plot progresses, there are more horror elements, including a death scene surprising both in the identity of the victim and in the way it is presented. Mitchell tests the boundaries of the PG-13 rating as it was understood in the 1980s.
Uh... wasn’t there a Clalit clinic here once? From 'The End of Oak Street'
(Photo: Courtesy of Tulip Entertainment)
There are moments when dinosaurs nibble on humans but nothing that should scar children in the later years of elementary school or older. The elements of fantasy ultimately allow the film to balance, in equal measure absurdly and amusingly, the unsettling dimension of horror with the comforting and entertaining dimension. In the end, as in Spielberg’s films, the regressive dimension of fantasy wins.
The concept behind “The End of Oak Street” could easily have been reduced to “Sharknado”-style monster trash. But this is not a cheap, low-budget hack job. It is skilled work in terms of design, cinematography, music and acting. Mitchell is a skilled enough director to create suspense and evoke a range of emotional responses from viewers. He also succeeds at something that is not easy: creating an intelligent dialogue with the cinematic era from which he draws his inspiration.