The End

Perhaps there’s some YOLO rationale governing The End. If you’re facing dire dystopian consequences, you might as well sing your way through the final days.

This muddled science-fiction saga at least has admirable outside-the-box audacity, even if the result is not for all tastes. Enhanced by committed performances, this combination of a turbulent domestic drama with a grand musical about wealth and power registers as a bold experiment or an elaborate gimmick that doesn’t pay off as intended.

The story is set entirely within a luxurious bunker created from an abandoned salt mine by some affluent doomsday preppers whose foresight apparently was spot-on.

With some sort of cataclysmic event having wiped out the planet around them, one surviving family is able to enjoy a life of parties with ornate art and expensive wine, complete with a butler and a doctor at the ready.

The inhabitants include a father (Michael Shannon) and mother (Tilda Swinton), plus their erudite adult son (George MacKay), who has never seen the outside world in his two-plus decades.

When a stranger (Moses Ingram) arrives at their doorstep, they reluctantly decide to welcome her, even if it threatens to tear the family apart — except they’ve got no place to go.

The narrative feature debut of director Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act of Killing) generates some intriguing character dynamics for its first-rate performers.

It occasionally sparks to life when putting the contextual pieces together regarding the apocalyptic events and their aftermath. Yet even beyond the music, there’s an artificiality to the narrative approach that inhibits a deeper emotional impact.

Maybe the central gimmick would have worked better if there was more variation to the songs beyond soul-searching ballads — to which the subject matter does not lend itself — or if the vocals or staging were more vibrant.

Oppenheimer deserves credit for taking a big swing with a film that plays best when it tries to be playful rather than provocative or profound. Shannon performing a holiday-themed tap-dance routine? Yes, please!

At any rate, The End might be a better fit on stage given its confined locations and lengthy stretches of dialogue. Rarely has a film with the end of the world at stake felt so slight and inconsequential.

Not rated, 148 minutes.