THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED (2001) *** There's always been something strange about Nastassja Kinski. Not exotic, not that she isn't exotic, but her otherworldliness has never had much to do with her accent or eyebrows. Those may be manifestations of something deeper. So, as a shrink to a kid who thinks his father is a space creature... It helps that Bobby Edner is incredible, brilliant, absolutely believable as a bullied little boy whose own strangeness seems to include powers and insights unavailable to the town yokels, and their children who hector him. So you start with a foundation of eerie characters deploying their credibility in the service of a comic book gone berserk. Then what? Terence Gross knows. He gently mixes in psychological metaphor, for those who refuse to believe (including Nastassja). He doesn't bother developing it beyond a simple framework, as those doing psychological detective work like to build their own denuded structures, often in their own image (what does it say about Nastassja, that she thinks he tells the truth about everything besides his father, and that he is himself somehow responsible for great violence?). Just in case there still is anyone unwilling to bite, Gross adds a broad dash of humour, in the most gloriously worst situations, and A-movie suspense. It helps, in each of these regards, that as he aged Randy Quaid grew one of those Ernest Borgnine heads. So does it leave you confused as to what really happens? No. Just that your recognition of the obvious may be mutually exclusive to that of the viewer next to you. "Aye, capitaino!" Perhaps spaceships, too, have a mainsail, which suggests even further ground for genre cross-pollonization. And that could be another genre in itself, and that...!
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