Right in the title of this Julianne Moore and Finn Wolfhard piece is a presentation of heroic action. A passive function of saving the world, passed off as a chore to slot in between washing some plates and changing the bedsheets. When You Finish Saving the World has nothing to do with the act of defending the planet from some harbinger of violence or natural disaster, but it does present its two leads with equally Herculean tasks. A24 are not one for tasks of that scale, and its ZX Spectrum-soundtracked opening with acoustic strings stretching through the beginning of this Jesse Eisenberg-directed debut, bringing about the shoegaze indie filmmaking that audiences had inflicted on them by Eisenberg when he was in front of the camera.
Grainy, moody inflictions of claustrophobic space and the inevitable slow zooms Eisenberg has picked up from his time on the frontlines of independent thrillers are shown throughout. His influences are clear and it is admirable that a debut like this can firmly plant that clear style in an otherwise messy dynamic between mother and son. Those clarifying slow zooms tire quickly and, in its place, comes the doom-scrolling modern style that consists of the horrors readily available at every turn. Moore and Jay O. Sanders make for an unconvincing on-screen pair because burrowed in that middle-class thesis that directors of that upbringing present to the screen are a disjointed dynamic that brings nothing but the necessary message Eisenberg hopes his characters portray.
Too kooky for truthful representation, too innate for honesty. When You Finish Saving the World has the mopey teenagers of the modern era, livestreaming and tipping their way to creative success as though that is the only way to rectify the swamp of aimlessness that was projected on those that precede this piece. Wolfhard is a quality draw but his performance as Ziggy, a half-decent performer making his snooty, self-entitled winnings on a livestreaming music app, is hard to swallow because of the attitude. It does well to side the viewer with Evelyn (Moore), who wants to be rid of her son. Well, not rid, but a better version. When You Finish Saving the World has some brass to it, considering an endgame that is boiled down to rich and poor and nothing more. Eisenberg does not have the writing to display a genuine understanding of that.
Neither an understanding of the generational divide in how money is made and how the issues of yesterday are not for today nor a chance to get to know these characters beyond what Eisenberg hopes they represent. When You Finish Saving the World disguises its switch-and-cut camera work simplicity that zooms in, and zooms out. Beyond technical simplicities that do little to highlight what few moments work for the story is a strangely flawed concept. How can parents that are so invested in themselves ever hope to understand the creative flow? American families are a fascinating monstrosity if this is how Eisenberg perceives the everyday back and forth of father and mother and son. His nuclear family, red wine drinking, not-that-interested-but-well-done-for-trying, suburban estate living, hollow journey through a broken family is no treat, but the sophistication of the solution is that only rejection of the individual can bring a family together.
