Italian postcard by Media Film, Milano. Photo: Media Film / Medusa. Colin Farrell in A Home at the End of the World (Michael Mayer, 2004).
Italian postcard by Media Film, Milano. Photo: Media Film / Medusa. Dallas Roberts and Colin Farrell in A Home at the End of the World (Michael Mayer, 2004).
A journey of trials, triumphs, loves, and losses
A Home at the End of the World (Michael Mayer, 2004) is based on a novel by Michael Cunningham, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 'The Hours'. The film chronicles a dozen years in the lives of two best friends who couldn't be more different.
We follow them from suburban Cleveland in the 1960s to New York City in the 1980s. Bobby Morrow's (Colin Farrell) life has been tinged with tragedy since he was a young boy, losing first his beloved older brother to a freak accident, then his mother to illness, and finally his father.
As a rebellious teenager, he meets the conservative and gawky Jonathan Glover (Dallas Roberts) in high school, and he becomes a regular visitor to the Glover home, where he introduces his friend and his mother Alice (Sissy Spacek) to marijuana and the music of Laura Nyro. Jonathan, who is slowly coming out as a homosexual, initiates Bobby into adolescent mutual masturbation during their frequent sleepovers.
When Alice catches them both masturbating in a car, Jonathan, embarrassed, tells Bobby he is going to leave as soon as he finishes high school. Alice teaches Bobby how to bake, unintentionally setting him on a career path that eventually takes him to New York City, where Jonathan is sharing a colorful East Village apartment with bohemian Clare (Robin Wright).
Bobby moves in, and the three create their own household. A Home at the End of the World charts a journey of trials, triumphs, loves, and losses. The question is: can they navigate the unusual triangle they've created and hold their friendship together?
Italian postcard by Media Film, Milano. Photo: Media Film / Medusa. Robin Wright and Colin Farrell in A Home at the End of the World (Michael Mayer, 2004).
Italian postcard by Media Film, Milano. Photo: Media Film / Medusa. Robin Wright and Colin Farrell in A Home at the End of the World (Michael Mayer, 2004).
Farrell's Bobby is suddenly an asexual puppy dog
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote: "The movie exists outside our expectations for such stories. Nothing about it is conventional. The three-member household is puzzling not only to us but to its members. We expect conflict, resolution, an ending happy or sad, but what we get is mostly life, muddling through ... Colin Farrell is astonishing in the movie, not least because the character is such a departure from everything he has done before."
At AllMovie, Derek Armstrong is much more negative: "The title A Home at the End of the World gives off both an optimistic and a pessimistic vibe, simultaneously, which is appropriate for a film that can't figure out what its tone should be. For example, the plot follows the protagonist (Colin Farrell's Bobby) through the deaths of a half-dozen important family members and friends, yet Duncan Sheik's dopey score is better suited to an annoyingly whimsical romantic comedy.
That dopiness is, however, well suited to Farrell's performance. Despite the succession of traumas his character endures, his attitude rarely changes from that of a pseudo-hippie naïf. It's hard to tell whether that's a reflection on director Michael Mayer's vision for the character, or Farrell's limitations as an actor, but it rings terribly false."
Finally, Wes Connors at IMDb: "indeed, it is a portrait of an unconventional family unit, but that should have remained secondary. At heart, this is a love (the kind including a sexual attraction) story between the Bobby and Jonathan characters, possibly deemphasized to make it more palatable. The focus unravels, especially after Mr. Farrell's adult Bobby takes over the action.
The film draws its fault line by losing touch with the central relationship, and Farrell's characterization goes off course. Freed-from-the-wig Colin Farrell and Dallas Roberts could have recorded a hit version of "Look Out, Cleveland" with The Band backing... The casting is excellent, with Erik Smith and Harris Allan especially winning as the teenage Bobby and Jonathan; they blend perfectly with the grown-up Farrell and Mr. Roberts.
Note that criticisms of Farrell in the lead role are of characterization, not acting. Smith's Bobby was played as a self-assured and sexually adventurous young man, but Farrell's Bobby is suddenly an asexual puppy dog; something is missing."
Italian postcard by Media Film, Milano. Photo: Media Film / Medusa. Colin Farrell in A Home at the End of the World (Michael Mayer, 2004).
Italian postcard by Media Film, Milano. Photo: Media Film / Medusa. Colin Farrell and Dallas Roberts in A Home at the End of the World (Michael Mayer, 2004).
Sources: Roger Ebert (Roger Ebert.com), Derek Armstrong (AllMovie), Wes Connors (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
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