Words by JANE CROWTHER
David Robert Mitchell’s Spielburbian survival dino movie is a blueprint movie for anyone studying ‘Save The Cat’ screenplay methodology, though kitties do not fare well when a cosmic event transposes an eighties conurbation to the Jurassic era and T-Rexes tear through the neighbourhood. Nostalgia-led, with nods to ET, Back To The Future, Jaws, Poltergeist, The End Of Oak Street ticks every narrative device box in driving 90 minutes of entertainment that is fun but ephemeral. Kids making dumb decisions about dogs, predators that can outrun minor characters but not leads, signposted plot points, literal bookends… if it wasn’t so well funded, executed and acted (by Hathaway), the manipulation and derivation might chafe more. Plus, it features dino sex and Diplodocuses eating ice cream – so you know, a summer popcorn movie you won’t be mad about seeing.
Opening with a 1982 summer street party (clearly a reshoot going by McGregor’s obtrusive wig), we meet the Platt family; Greg (McGregor) and his unhappy wife Denise (Anne Hathaway) with their kids Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convery). The parents are going through marriage and money woes, Audrey is an astronomy nerd who dreams of uni, Brian a boy who loves his mutt, Starbuck, and is trying to escape a pummelling from a local boy. As BBQs sizzle the Platts each yearn for change – no more so than Denise who is secretly writing a novel, loathes the domestic drudge and is contemplating divorce. One could view what comes next as a feminist wish fulfillment as a mother becomes a warrior hero and shows her abilities outside of the home – as she tells her husband ‘I can take as much as you, maybe more.’
There’s a lot to take after a night of torrential rain, mysterious lights and rumbles; in the morning there’s no utilities, a rainforest in the back yard and prehistoric critters going through the bins. As the Ambin-esque score swells the Platts separate, come together, endure grief, try to figure out how to get back to the future and do a lot of running. The neighbourhood plotted by the opening party is the parameters of the action, the introduced characters either chomped or following a simplistic escape plan – with deaths grisly in ideation without being graphic thanks to nifty camera angles and reaction shots. But this is essentially a thrill ride: tackle the T-Rex, the giant slithery Titanoboa, the pincer-movement Velociraptors, the flapping Ptereodactyls… The dinosaurs could be read as a manifestation of a frustrated woman raging against a patriarchal society but Oak Street is not that deep.
Loaded with eighties production design detail, deep background focus shots familiar from that era, the use of shadows and a musical cue that would feel familiar to Marty McFly, The End Of Oak Street taps into the retro fascination of Super 8 and Stranger Things and promises a fun time at the movies and like the kitties in the film, probably won’t last long in the memory. But sometimes, when it feels as hot as a prehistoric swamp, a disposable escape like this is exactly what we need.
Words by JANE CROWTHER
Images courtesy of WARNER BROS. PICTURES
The End of Oak Street is in cinemas now