Another End Review: A Somber Rumination Stifled By Its Own Ambition

Another End offers a compelling sci-fi premise exploring how far we might go to reconnect with lost loved ones. Directed by Piero Messina and led by Gael García Bernal and Renate Reinsve, this brooding drama combines fantastical concepts with painfully human stories of grief and longing.

We’re introduced to Sal, a heartbroken man who has lost his girlfriend Zoe in a tragic car accident that may have been his fault. When Sal’s sister Ebe, who works for a mysterious corporation called Another End, gives him an unbelievable opportunity to bring Zoe back for a short time, Sal faces an agonizing choice. Another End has developed technology to transfer memories from the deceased into willing “host” bodies, letting grieving family members say a more complete goodbye.

Desperate for closure after Zoe’s sudden death, Sal agrees to let her memories be implanted into a host named Ava. Over three dreamlike days, he gets to be with his lost love again. But as their time inevitably nears its end, Sal grapples with excruciating questions of identity, connection, and how to let go.

Messina brings impressive visual flair, creating a stark, stylized world for this contemplative sci-fi drama to unfold. But does the film deliver enough emotional payoff to back up its ambitious concept? Another End promises a poignant exploration of love, loss and the lengths we might travel to hold onto those we’ve lost.

Delving into a Future Where Memories Defy Mortality

Another End’s premise offers profound questions about identity, technology, and the afterlife. In its near-future setting, a mysterious corporation has developed a way to digitally preserve people’s memories and consciousness when they die, transferring them into willing “hosts” so grieving loved ones can reconnect.

It’s an incredibly evocative idea. As one character asks, “What connects us to the people we care about?” Is it memories that make us who we are? Could technology one day blur the boundary between life and death? The possibility sparks intense emotions and debates within the film.

Yet while the central concept immerses us in existential quandaries, the world-building around the “Another End” technology falls short. The rules governing memory transfers seem inconsistent, even contradictory at times. We’re bombarded with jargon about “reawakening” procedures, “dream residue,” safeguards against “contamination.” But none of it coheres into a convincing system.

Certain details strain believability. It’s unclear why the deceased manifest in host bodies remembering their original appearance, unaware they now inhabit a different physical form. The motives behind volunteering as a host also go unexplained—an oversight that diminishes the setup’s credibility. Wider implications for society are hinted at yet never fully addressed.

The script gets so caught up stipulating dubious protocols, it loses sight of fleshing out the world. While visually sleek and atmospheric, Messina’s future setting remains thinly sketched, feeling more metaphorical abstraction than tangible place.

In getting mired in the minutiae of its own convoluted rules, Another End wastes the promise of its inspired premise to meaningfully wrestle with questions of identity and technology’s place in confronting mortality. The concept alone overflowed with dramatic potential. But the film’s muddled, hole-ridden rendering of this captivating near-future unfortunately leaves that rich potential untapped.

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Wrestling with the Agony of Letting Go

At its heart, Another End is a somber meditation on grief, mortality, and the struggle to let go of lost loved ones. Messina ponders profound questions about what ties us to those we cherish. If technology could capture someone’s essence from beyond death, would that provide comfort or only deepen the pain of separation?

The film revolves around a tragic irony: the “reawakening” process meant to alleviate grief instead intensifies Sal’s anguish when time with his resurrected love nears its inevitable end again. In grappling with this agonizing choice, the narrative provokes poignant reflections on the grieving process and whether artificially prolonging a life already lost could impede healing or permanently warp closure.

Yet as much as the story superficially engages these resonant themes, it often feels too clinical and emotionally distant, more fixated on fleshing out sci-fi concepts than genuinely sitting with the feelings they stir up. While visually polished, the film struggles to elicit the profound catharsis promised by its charged premise.

The script poses thoughtful questions about the essence of identity and attachment. Messina seems to argue memories alone fail to encapsulate the deeper bonds between people. But these abstract ruminations aren’t grounded in sufficiently dimensional characters and relationships. We only glimpse the surface of Sal and Zoe’s connection.

Another End shows great ambition in the ideas it seeks to unpack about love and loss. If only it concerned itself as much with making us invest in the fates of its players. Ironically for a film preoccupied with the nature of human connection, too seldom does it meaningfully forge that link with its audience. The cerebral musings remain detached from raw emotion.

Leads Caught Between Sci-Fi Plot and Emotional Truths

The film rests on affecting performances from Gael García Bernal and Renate Reinsve as the grieving Sal and resurrected lover he can’t quite let go of. As they contend with the bizarre situation inflicted on them, both leads convey penetrating anguish and longing. Their interactions brim with sensitivity, transcending an often unwieldy narrative.

As Ava embodies Zoe’s memories while exhibiting flickers of her own buried identity, Reinsve movingly channels the disorientation of being two souls in one body. Her yearning gazes pierced by moments of confusion and unease, she makes us ache for a character the story renders a hollow vessel. Meanwhile, Bernal brings his trademark soulful humility to Sal’s agony, poignantly expressing the character’s quiet torment.

Yet after the leads, most roles are underdeveloped. Supporting characters serve functional needs in the plot rather than emerging as fully dimensional individuals in their own right. As Sal’s sister Ebe, Bérénice Bejo has limited room to flex beyond being an exposition tool. And though Olivia Williams offers a touching portrait of another grieving customer, it’s a strand left largely disconnected from the central thread.

As preoccupied as it is with its conceptual framework, Another End devotes too little attention to building robust characters or relatable relationships between them. The leads’ compassionate work, however, sometimes lifts the material to hover near the resonant emotional truths it otherwise reaches for unsuccessfully. Their humane performances hint at the affecting drama that might have bloomed given more grounded characters to embody these weighty themes.

Brooding Tone Overpowers a Languid Narrative

Visually, Another End crafts an ominous, rain-soaked world that aptly reflects its brooding meditation on grief. Striking environments and clever framing echo the story’s haunting tone, even as gaps in logical world-building diminish the atmosphere’s power.

Cinematographer Fabrizio La Palombara shrouds scenes in gloomy shadows or clinical white light, the aptly sterile aesthetic matching Another End corporation’s emotionless ethos. Sal’s cavernous apartment brims with negative space, visually signaling his hollow loneliness without Zoe. The movie conjures surreal moments, like false memories implanted in blank hosts, with eerie poise.

But arresting visual concepts alone can’t compensate for what is largely a dramatically inert affair. Scenes creep by with little narrative momentum, the two-hour runtime needlessly stretched out. After its evocative setup, the film slips into a cycle of repetitive visits between Sal and Zoe, the sluggish pacing smothering emotional arcs.

Melodramatic dialogue similarly deflates the human stakes, any nuance drowned out by thudding announcements of what characters feel. When Sal insists “I blame myself for Zoe’s death” without any context, it rings hollow. Even Bernal can’t convincingly sell lines that declare themes rather than organically reveal them.

For all its admirable creative vision, Another End feels at war with itself between arthouse abstractness and grounded emotion. It wants to immerse us in weighty ideas about mortality and longing but spends too little time making its players’ turmoil painfully tangible. An alienating tone ultimately overpowers the scattered moments where glimmers of poignant catharsis shine through.

A Mixed Bag That Falters Fulfilling Its Potential

Another End shows admirable daring with its high-concept premise, asking challenging questions about death, technology, and the soul-wrenching refusal to let loved ones go. Anchored by tender moments between its central duo, a captivating idea glimmers through, even if left half-formed.

Where the film stumbles is fleshing out its future world and steeping us in authentic feeling to match its lofty themes. Muddled world-building and distancing aesthetics diminish dramatic investment, the visual panache never covering messy logical gaps. Solid acting gets bogged down by thinly sketched roles and overtly convenient plot devices. Promising potential slips through Messina’s fingers.

And yet, for flashes, that potential still beguiles—credit two haunted lead performances that reel us in with sheer magnetism. Gael García Bernal and Renate Reinsve nearly override the material’s shortcomings in moments of naked vulnerability, their aching connection fleetingly resonating.

Another End tries reaching profound cinematic heights few films attempt, grappling with life’s most painful mysteries of loss, memory, and the lure of second chances. While it never sticks the landing, traces of piercing emotion offer glimpses of the triumph it might have been with more realized characters and fully fleshed world. Even partially formed, it makes the mind reel.

I’d gently recommend to moodily minded, conceptually curious viewers, especially those compelled by lead actors Bernal and Reinsve. Just brace for an uneven affair that only intermittently delivers on its ambitions. But those sporadic highs just might still make the bumpy ride worthwhile.