In his directorial debut, actor Jesse Eisenberg attempts something we might not expect from a first-time filmmaker: a cold, hard look at narcissism. Talk about setting yourself up for failure. Who wants to spend a couple of hours with a couple of self-obsessed jackasses? But When You Finish Saving the World (which would have benefited from a snappier title) is not only a unique family drama, it’s an articulate portrait of arrogance and self-absorption. Although social media plays a part in this scenario, looming in the background like a shadow, Eisenberg is more interested in the strained interpersonal relationship between a mother and son who share personality traits, particularly the bad ones.
Reminiscent of indie dramas from the early 2000’s like The Squid and the Whale, which nudged Eisenberg into the spotlight as a rising star, this A24 film takes place in Bloomington, Indiana, where our protagonists live in a modest, tree lined neighborhood. Julianne Moore plays Evelyn, the stone-faced mother of Ziggy, an effective Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things). Her husband, Roger (Jay O. Sanders), is a lumbering former professor, who seems more concerned about what they’re having for dinner than the tense atmosphere.
The movie focuses on Ziggy, an introverted teen who spends most of his time playing awful folk songs on a livestream to his 20,000 followers, which he boasts about at every opportunity. Ziggy is painfully adrift in his supposed social media fame (and the money he makes from it); he even installs a gigantic on-air light outside his bedroom which flashes and swirls whenever he goes live so nobody will interrupt him. You’d think his parents lived with Howard Stern.
Ziggy might be unabashedly smug, but his mother doesn’t fare much better. With a strained smile that looks downright painful, she runs a shelter for victims of domestic abuse. The job requires an inordinate amount of compassion, but Evelyn is distant and haughty with the women she checks…
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