Mark Reviews Movies: WHEN YOU FINISH SAVING THE WORLD

When You Finish Saving the World, A24

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | January 19, 2023

What you want out of life, what other people want for you in life, and what the world ultimately and continuously throws at you are often completely different things. A mother and a son discover that, as well as how that divide between expectation and reality has formed a rift in their own relationship, in When You Finish Saving the World.

This is the debut feature of writer/director Jesse Eisenberg, best known for his acting but showing some promise behind the camera—mostly because he intrinsically knows to trust the people in front of it. Here, Julianne Moore plays the mother, named Evelyn and more than happy-enough with the career she has chosen, and Finn Wolfhard plays the teenage son, named Ziggy and coasting as a successful musician whose work appears exclusively online. Both of these characters more or less have it easy in the big picture, which adds a layer of separation between us and them, but there's a deep discontent that's making life and this relationship tougher than it probably should be for these two.

Eisenberg's screenplay doesn't waste too much time in getting to the heart of the characters' respective problems or calling them out for how self-indulgent they actually are. On the flip side of that, the movie doesn't spend much time dissecting those issues or the narcissism that the filmmaker more or less admits is driving all of this, either. Basically, the movie is a dive into the lives and mindsets of some superficial people, and ultimately, that makes the story itself feel more superficial than Eisenberg intends it to be.

The story is basically split between mother and son, since each one is too busy and generally annoyed/disappointed with the other to spend too much time together. Evelyn founded runs a shelter for victims of domestic abuse somewhere in Indiana. It's rewarding work, even if Evelyn is a little strict about everything being perfectly in order, as seen in an introductory scene that has her gently scolding employees for celebrating a co-worker's birthday a bit too loudly).

Meanwhile, Ziggy writes and performs his own songs for an internet audience that regular pays him for his livestreams. Everything has to be perfectly in order for him, too, if his own introduction, which has him loudly scolding his mother for trying to open the door while his show is going, is any indication. They're so much alike, if only in personality, that conflict is inevitable, perhaps, and there's a nice detail that Evelyn's husband, Ziggy's father, Roger (Jay O. Sanders) is always reading, because he knows there's really no place for him, his life, or his ideas in this house.

The real disconnect between Evelyn and Ziggy is that neither understands or makes an effort to understand the other, a fact that Eisenberg makes clear with the quiet but on-the-nose climax, which is both admirable in its simplicity and disappointing in its straightforwardness. That's getting ahead of the game, of course, but it affirms how little digging into these characters and this relationship the movie actually accomplishes.

Ziggy just wants to make his music, but Evelyn dismisses or mocks what she thinks her son's songs are about, his focus on making money, and his shortsightedness in using the income he earns to buy more equipment for his performances. The teen's side of the narrative revolves around his attempts to woo Lila (Alisha Boe), a smart and politically active classmate, but since he doesn't know much about politics, Ziggy doesn't seem to have a chance. Evelyn certainly doesn't help when she makes fun of her son's sudden interest in activism and his desire to find a shortcut to talking about political topics.

For her part, Evelyn latches onto Kyle (Billy Bryk), the teenage son of a woman (played by Eleonore Hendricks) who comes to shelter to get away from her abusive husband. Kyle is a kind-hearted young man, and Evelyn makes it her mission to get him into college, where he might learn to put that empathy toward a career that helps other people. The dark joke, of course, is that she sees everything she might want from a son in Kyle, so she starts treating him like one—giving him a hat that belongs to Ziggy, taking him to her son's favorite restaurant, bringing the teen leftovers that Ziggy didn't want to eat.

Some of this is pretty amusing, because the characters are both intelligent enough to recognize their shortcomings and too self-involved to do much about them. The performances get to the core of this idea quite well, too, with Moore playing the uncomfortable tension of someone who wants to be patient and compassionate but seems to have found her limit in the person of her own son—and feels guilty that such is the case. Wolfhard is quite funny and a bit sympathetic as a teen who desperately wants to be accepted by others—meaning he has never started to figure out what kind of person he could be on his own.

The movie, unfortunately, never goes much deeper than the simplistic dynamic of this relationship and comedic potential of these characters. When You Finish Saving the World is a well-meaning and self-aware character study, but such self-imposed limitations keep it from being a particularly successful one.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products