Coming from Reality

The End of Love

Written and Directed by Mark Webber.

Mark Webber decides to create a self portrait of his parenthood. This is fiction, a narrative about a newly single parent trying to cope with the loss of the mother of his child. Even though he’s a patient father, he’s also a bit absent, not physically absent but in the mind. No one’s perfect.

I wonder how Mark considered his character’s self pity. Because there’s a fine line between the self pity rasping annoyance and being compassionate with this man’s current life status. It’s reaching self pity when he finally explains to his new female friend about the tragedy that hit him recently. Then there are other moments that don’t feel credible. Like his other female acquaintance he meets in Michael Cera’s party. It is just a tool with no depth to give the story the ingredients to move forward. Now that I mentioned this, I feel like for long periods of time this story doesn’t really moves forward. I also wanted to know more about this father’s life. 

The End of Love feels like a pretty lonely place sometimes and that’s maybe the hard part you have to accept about this story. Because this also may be very real. The moments between father and son always feel authentic and caring. Sometimes the moments of Mark by himself feel like acting. Sometimes it’s not easy to balance these nuances. But overall, it’s a respectful effort. And you will certainly be melting with the baby's big blue eyes.

Save the Date

Directed by Michael Mohan, co-written with Jeffrey Brown and Egan Reich.

This film feels sincere; it feels quite authentic, especially the moments between lovers Lizzy Caplan and Mark Webber, but also the other couple Allison Brie and Martin Starr. The actors are really good here. It is also clear and hard to deny how funny Allison Brie is. “We’re too busy crying to have an abortion.” The End of Love is an honest and heartwarming film but it doesn’t really bring anything new…except for being honest and not being about superheroes. That should probably count as something unique these days.