The trailer for The End of Oak Street awakened a memory of a book that made a big impression on me as a young library rat devouring all the sci-fi I could get my hands on. In October the First Is Too Late, Fred Hoyle imagines a world where time and space get into a twist so that adjacent areas are experiencing different times. It’s the present day in Italy, but in Greece, it’s the Bronze Age. Mexico exists in an eco-utopian near future, while parts of Russia are featureless glass from the far future where the Earth has been blasted by the expanding Sun.
Hoyle, who happens to be the Cambridge University astronomer who coined the term “Big Bang,” used the premise to tell a story about the myth of progress and its discontents. David Robert Mitchell, who happens to be the writer/director who kicked off the current wave of elevated horror with It Follows, uses the premise to tell a kick-ass story about dinosaurs.
And it’s about time, because let’s face it, the last few Jurassic World movies have been pure ass. It’s Jurassic Period hot outside, and we need to sit in air-conditioned comfort and watch dinosaurs eat people. Mitchell knows what we want and takes his sweet time getting there. It’s the ’80s, and Denise (Anne Hathaway) and Greg (Ewan McGregor) live in a cozy suburban cul de sac of split-level ranch houses and block party barbecues. Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convery) roam freely like the “kids on bikes” stereotypes they are. But, as usual with the Spielbergian suburbs, there’s trouble beneath the idyllic surface. Greg’s a victim of Reaganomics struggling to keep a roof over the family’s head without looking like he’s struggling to the neighbors. Denise is a talented novelist who spends her evenings locked in the basement chronicling domestic dysfunction with her typewriter. Then, one night, Brian sees a light outside the window, and a giant pile of dung appears in the neighbor’s (P.J. Byrne) yard. The next night, the lights are back, and this time, the whole neighborhood is transported 200 million years back in time.
Even after the suburban time slip, Mitchell keeps the dinosaurs in the shadows as long as possible. Velociraptors lurk just around the corner; rustling foliage conceals something huge and menacing. Once he lets it rip, the film becomes a relentless parade of visual gags as Greg and Denise watch their neighbors become Jurassic snacks. Mitchell loves long takes where the dinosaurs sneak up behind the hapless family. The kids in particular seem to lack self-preservation instincts, and since it’s the 1980s, just because you’re being chased by hungry dinosaurs doesn’t mean that bullying stops. Hathaway is perfectly serviceable as a harried mom in an extraordinary situation. Whenever McGregor plays an American, it always seems like he’s subtly making fun of Americans, which works just fine when he’s beeping his car horn in impotent frustration while Mesozoic megaturtles block Oak Street. If you’ve ever rolled your eyes at a $300 million Jurassic World debacle and thought, “How hard is it to make a good creature feature?” Mitchell shows you how it’s done.
The End of Oak Street
Now playing
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