Half of a high concept, The End of Oak Street works better as a dark action comedy than the Spielbergian homage it initially suggests. (For that, go to Oak Street producer J.J. Abrams’ directorial effort, Super 8). Here, a 1980s suburban family, led by Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor, fends for themselves after their neighborhood suddenly, inexplicably gets zapped into a prehistoric setting—hungry dinos and all. Writer-director David Robert Mitchell (decidedly switching gears from It Follows and Under the Silver Lake) has lots of fun with the camera, including a humorous, circular pan past an oblivious family getting into their car, while Hathaway and McGregor flee marauding predators across the street in the background. (Mitchell also throws a split diopter party at one point that should restrict him from ever employing the lens technique again.) McGregor can’t squeeze anything out of his thin part, but Hathaway is game for both the terror and (intentional?) comedy. In fact, the only way the wild, half-baked ending works is if you see it as a silly joke, in which interdimensionality, logic, and individuality be damned, as long as one thing is be preserved: the American nuclear family.
(8/20/2026)
