Anthony Lane reviews Jesse Eisenberg’s directorial debut, “When You Finish Saving the World,” a small and cloistered work that seems to shrink into itself.
It comes as a surprise to learn that “When You Finish Saving the World,” a new film directed by Jesse Eisenberg, is also thefilm directed by Jesse Eisenberg. Really? I could have sworn he’d taken charge before. He’s one of those actors who become de-facto auteurs, imbuing a story so richly with their manners, or their moods, that it feels like their own creation.
If you are groaning in spirit after watching Florian Zeller’s “The Son,” which is now in wide release, you may be wondering, Why bother with yet another drama about wretched parents and their lonely offspring? Because, although “When You Finish Saving the World” is equally taut with unhappiness, it allows itself to be funny, in ways that are inconceivable to “The Son.
Then, there is Evelyn—a worthy addition to Julianne Moore’s gallery of well-meaning souls from whose existence the meaning has drained away, drop by drop. Nobody smiles like Moore, or compels us to ask, as she does, what kind of courage is required for the upkeep of a brave face. Hence the sudden shock when, giving Ziggy a ride to school, she lays into him for not having inherited her political fire. “When you were a little boy, I brought you to every march, every protest,” she tells him.
Léo’s best friend—almost his other half, you might say—is Rémi . They bicycle to school together; they have regular sleepovers, dozing side by side in a shaft of blessed morning sunlight; and they race through a blur of blooms, pink and scarlet, shoulder-high, like time travellers who have landed in the midst of a Monet.
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