The cast list for the upcoming apocalyptic comedy How It Ends is almost unfathomable. Fred Armisen, Glenn Howerton, Whitney Cummings, Charlie Day, Halen Hunt, Nick Kroll, Lamorne Morris, Pauly Shore, Bradley Whitford, Colin Hanks, and Olivia Wilde are just a few of the people who appear. However, that’s kind of all they do because the movie isn’t about any of them.
It’s really about Liza (Zoe Lister-Jones, who also wrote and directed with Daryl Wein) who decides she’s going to go to a party. But just not any party. An end of the world party. You see, in How it Ends, a meteor is speeding toward Earth. It can’t be stopped. We’re all doomed and, as the film begins, it’s the day it’s finally happening. So, a party seems like the right decision. And Liza decides to bring along a friend, who’s more like a physical manifestation of her younger self, played by Mare of Easttown’s Cailee Spaeny.
So you saw that, right? Liza and younger Liza — who other people can see and is never fully explained but steals the whole movie — just walk around Los Angeles and interact with people. They don’t use a car because her car was stolen but the trip allows Liza (and younger Liza) to attempt to tie up all the loose ends in her personal life before going off into oblivion. She’ll also have many, many weird interactions with random people that are just funny or poignant, giving the film some nice depth. In those random small roles, we meet the characters played by the ultra-famous cast.
How It Ends isn’t for everyone. It’s a teeny-tiny take on a huge, massive idea. But it’s done well and it’s interesting, and the actors and performances are all really solid.
Written and directed by Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister-Jones, How it Ends will be released on-demand on July 20.