There’s something that will likely occur to you early on in The End of Oak Street, the new sci-fi drama opening this week: this movie is strongly influenced by Steven Spielberg's work.
It’s set in 1982, the year of E.T. It features an idyllic suburban existence—with teenage boys riding their bikes, though family dysfunction lurks beneath the surface—frequent Spielberg themes. Dinosaurs (à la Jurassic Park) make an appearance to have scary interactions with humans, although, like in Jaws, a lot of time passes before we first see them. The film was produced by J.J. Abrams, who’d already done something very similar with his early-career Spielberg homage, Super 8.
On its own merits, The End of Oak Street is fine. It’s got a fairly tight script, the scares are impressive, and the period detail is immaculate. What’s missing is originality, and when it comes to Spielberg at the multiplex this summer, the real thing (Disclosure Day) was much better.
The End of Oak Street was written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, best known for the 2014 horror hit It Follows, influential on high-concept horror movies that have ripped off different parts of its premise. He followed that with 2018’s Under the Silver Lake, which is one of my favorite types of movies—a mysterious adventure, delving into weird corners of Los Angeles—although I didn’t think that it worked. A flop at the time, it’s since become a cult hit.
The director is back after eight years with The End of Oak Street. The Platts are a family of four: parents Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor, and kids Maisy Stella (from My Old Ass) and Christian Convery. They’re a seemingly perfect suburban family, but there are hidden cracks: Dad’s a sporadically employed alcoholic, Mom has secret literary aspirations she wishes she could run away to pursue, and they’re on the verge of divorce. Son Brian has bullies after him and carries a bow and arrow everywhere, while daughter Audrey is quiet and bookish.
A series of strange events leads to the family’s neighborhood being cleaved off, and eventually invaded by dinosaurs. Most of the film’s running time is spent with the family running to reach safety, while Hathaway and McGregor try to solve their marital woes amid the chaos.
There are some creative scares and set pieces, my favorite is a worm-like dinosaur slithering through their house. And I also liked how the film is deliberately vague about which weapons can and can’t hurt the creatures. It’s probably more enjoyable, and features more sympathetic human storytelling, than any of the recent Jurassic Park/World entries. And of Anne Hathaway’s five movie performances this year, it’s about in the middle of the pack.
Two things about the movie’s ending: I liked that it didn’t entail a scientist suddenly appearing, Neil deGrasse Tyson-style, to give a five-minute speech explaining the scientific realities of everything we just watched. At the same time, the movie ends about two scenes too late. It has one ending, which wouldn’t only have represented something perfectly bittersweet but also have recalled yet another Spielberg film (I won’t say which one). But unfortunately, the movie then continues for two more unnecessary scenes.