Like Fleishman, Jesse Eisenberg is in trouble with directorial debut When You Finish Saving the World
that sees Ziggy, a teenage music streamer played by Finn Wolfhard, visit an open mic afternoon hosted by a bunch of budding teen activists. Onstage, a high schooler wearing a sweatshirt reading CORPORATE AMERICA plays puppeteer to another teen, whose top says POLITICIAN. “We don’t ever tell lies,” they say in droning unison. “Or do we?”
A well-intentioned performance, but one that’s underdeveloped in its execution. Too on the nose. Greater points completely undercut by ham-fistedness. We get itis in general. The directorial debut from actor Jesse Eisenberg, based on his audiobook of the same name, does so much telling, and so little showing, that it’s hard not to walk away from the film feeling, frankly, talked down to.
The movie is mostly a two-hander, with Julianne Moore playing Evelyn, the mother of Wolfhard’s Ziggy. Evelyn runs a shelter for abused women, while Ziggy cashes in as a singer-songwriter online, live-streaming his myopic pop tunes to apparent legions of fans worldwide. Both mother and son think their own work is, well, world-saving, while failing to understand the significance of the other’s.
Thematically, When You Finish Saving the World treads well-worn coming-of-age territory, with some smart 21st-century pivots.treads well-worn coming-of-age territory, with some smart 21st-century pivots . But there’s a two-dimensionality to the film that threatens to completely deflate the nuance of its subject matter – and a lot of that is owing to the inelegance of its dialogue.
It’s not all a wash, though. The film has a few scenes of real poignancy, like when Ziggy translates a poem written by his crush into a song. Moore, as always, is a pleasure to watch. The film’s sparseness and at-times shaky camerawork give it a veracity that’s occasionally unnerving. And there are some good, strong ideas at its core! Perhaps a first-time director can be forgiven, like those teenage puppeteers, for not knowing how to get a message across without wearing it on his sleeve.
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