The End of the Affair, Mesozoic edition

The End of Oak Street is subversive in (mostly) a good way. This is not so much a movie about a dinosaur apocalypse as it is a movie about the apocalyptic prospect of a divorce. The concept of an Overton window shifting is no mere metaphor in this film: an American neighborhood in 1982 shifts into the Mesozoic era with all the bio-cultural and anthropological shifts that implies.

There is a lot to like in this movie, including a generous serving of 1980’s pop-culture references, the effective use of a split diopter lens, a fantastic performance by Anne Hathaway that holds this film together, and a scene with the family dog that yielded more applause in the theater than anything I can remember in the last decade of movie-going.

But then comes a gentle but persistent nod to lesbian teen romance, which leaves one wondering: Is the writer actually interested in the preservation of marriage, or merely in preserving consensual eroticism (even among dinosaurs)? The movie is either conflicted about the connection between sexual complementarity and marriage, or else committed to the idea that erotic desire - independent of its end - is an unqualified advance in culture, sort of like indoor plumbing and pizza delivery.

Conservatives could try to defend this film’s otherwise schizophrenic anthropology by arguing that the inorganic nod to wokeness is consistent with the film’s penchant for horror at human scale. But it’s kind of a stretch, as the film doesn’t demonstrate anything but admiration for the romantic mirage. Sentimentality and nostalgia are the primary drivers of the narrative, so there is a kind of inner logic here.

It seems that Hollywood demands something morally edgy like lesbian teen romance in the horror genre. I’m watching Cape Fear on Apple TV+ and there’s a lesbian teen romance in that horror story also. Though, to be fair, homosexual teen romance is handled with a lot more honesty in Cape Fear (and in the recent Australian film Leviticus) than it is in The End of Oak Street.

As a final note for parents: I saw a couple attending this movie with a child no older than seven years old. I don’t really think this film is designed for the pre-teen soul; the comedy in this movie at times intersects with intense prehistoric violence in jarring ways. But maybe the Overton window has shifted further than I know. Perhaps the plants in my yard are actually from the Mesozoic era. Given what we all have witnessed in the past six years in America, it wouldn't be a real surprise to wake up as a stranger in a strange land.