“The End of Oak Street” Review

“The End of Oak Street” is a wonderful challenge to all those who say they don’t make movies like they used to: the kind of high concept original family adventure that dominated the box office in decades past but has since approached extinction. David Robert Mitchell delivers a mature story that treats every member of the family unit as a main character, with their own wants and needs, who must come together to get through unbelievable challenges, visceral and sensitive while offering a nostalgic good time.

The Platts are a picture perfect American family, laughing together in the idyllic suburbia that is their neighborhood’s Summer celebration. Beneath their blissful image, each member is struggling with their lot in life. Brian (Christian Convery), 13, is acting out, drawing the ire of neighborhood bullies while Audrey (Maisy Stella), 18, struggles with her identity and doubts about her future after graduation. And the parents, Greg (Ewan McGregor) and Denise (Anne Hathaway), think they are hiding their struggles but their children notice that they do more fighting than laughing ever since Greg lost his job.

And in the background of this domestic turmoil, the radio makes passing mention of ripples in space of unknown origin and with unknown effect.

After a blinding light and a particularly violent storm, Oak Street and the surrounding neighborhood loses all power and utilities. Come morning, when Greg and Denise go outside to check on their neighbors, they find their street crawling with predatory dinosaurs with no escape in sight.

David Robert Mitchell keeps the pace humming, establishing the family, their unique struggles, and every supporting character with an admirable economy of storytelling in order to move right along to the dinosaur infused mayhem. He wields a perfect tone, offering plenty of genre delights for the whole family without ever condescending to children, depicting legitimate scares and trusting that an audience of all ages can handle it.

“The End of Oak Street” is a wonderful fusion of two 1980s auteurs as its story of a suburban family thrown into a sci-fi survival adventure reads Steven Spielberg while the style, with its roving camera and myriad split diopter shots, using a lens that keeps two different subjects at different distances in focus while the space between them remains blurry, is pure Brian De Palma. Mitchell wields the horror skills developed on “It Follows” to craft moments of thrilling suspense, showing threats to the audience but not his character such that we sit on the edge of our seats, waiting for the inevitable violence to strike.

As different shades of an unfulfilled domestic life, the entire cast brings this family to life with believable chemistry, believable problems, and believable joy. McGregor and Hathaway have moments of laughter over pizza with their kids, even as their marriage is disintegrating. As a foursome, their bickering is constant and relatable, such as when the thirteen year old boy is visibly uncomfortable telling his sister he loves her, even in the face of death. With the family so well developed, their life or death decisions are all the more impactful and emotional.

While the bar may not be particularly high, “The End of Oak Street” is certainly the best dinosaur movie since the original “Jurassic Park.” Like that classic, this film tells a grounded, human story while using the science fiction premise to challenge the characters, shaking them out of their stagnant lives.

I found myself transported along with the Pratts and their entire block, exhilarated and horrified and most of all grateful for Mitchell’s original vision, showing that existing IP is not needed to deliver a satisfying adventure story.

The End of Oak Street
Rated PG-13 for some strong violent content, bloody images, some strong language and suggestive material.
Running Time: 1 hour and 39 minutes.

Director David Robert Mitchell
Writers David Robert Mitchell
Stars Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella, Christian Convery
Rating PG-13
Running Time 99 Minutes
Genres Action, Adventure, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller