Not for the easily offended, Joe Bartone’s Everything Will Be Fine in the End straps audiences into the worn-out shoes of Hollywood’s irreverent gutter punks and the people who exploit them. Bartone’s independent feature follows a trio of reckless twentysomethings in a meandering tale of theft, murder, sex, drugs, and futility. Film professors might use Everything Will Be Fine in the End as an example of different techniques possible within a low-budget, independent production. The film could also fit into a library’s screening series about drifting young people, though it fails to measure up to classics like Smithereens or Suburbia.
After a contentious tryst with the heinous Buzz (Kent Harper), George (Elsa Kennedy) initiates a grassroots campaign of stapling art on utility poles to get her dog back from the sexist, racist, transphobic (and allegedly even worse things, if you believe George) older man. Her friends, Renka (Cheska Zaide) and Kai (Steven Michael Martin), spend their days at the skate park, sitting on curbs, espousing pseudo-philosophy, hustling, and doing the occasional crime. George takes a job in the Valley as a maid to the agoraphobic and potentially psychotic Julia (Holly Rockwell), who gets off on watching the younger delinquent scrub toilets. George brings her friends to the house for a party, where they are caught by Julia in an awkward threesome involving a sandwich. When Julia grabs a kitchen knife, Renka and Kai panic and make matters worse with a skateboard and trash bag.
Everything Will Be Fine in the End uses a plethora of stylistic flourishes, reminiscent of ‘90s independent cinema like Run Lola Run. Magical realism, black and white, a music video, slo-mo, split screens, illustrated title cards, a prophet-like narrator quoting T.S. Eliot – filmmaker Bartone throws everything at the screen to see what sticks. Actors Kennedy and Harper turn in unhinged performances as George and Buzz, while Zaide brings a touch of realism to the movie as Renka.
Even with these interesting performers and entertaining visual choices, the film suffers from shallow characterization. The character Isaiah borders on a particularly condescending trope about Black people on film – the “Magical Negro” – and women die merely to advance the story. The characters make choices that don’t line up with reality, however stylized. Even with a history of abuse driving her, it makes no sense why the enigmatic George would bother with the scuzzy Buzz in the first place. (Or why any of the characters do - everything about him screams, "Stay away from that guy!") When the film’s action should accelerate like a descending roller coaster at the end of the first act, it ebbs instead.
There are worse ways to spend an hour and a half than a messy cinematic stroll down Hollywood Boulevard, but Everything Will Be Fine in the End is a little less than fine. Except for the last ten minutes, the film runs out of steam by the halfway point, despite its undeniable style and the actors’ best attempts at True Romance-esque characters without a Tarantino screenplay. Everything Will Be Fine in the End belongs in the digital collections of film collectors and media librarians with a strong passion for supporting emerging voices in independent film.
What kind of film series would Everything Will Be Fine in the End fit in?
Everything Will Be Fine in the End would fit into a screening series about aimless young people alongside films like Smithereens, Suburbia, Foxes, Dinner in America, and Skate Kitchen. The movie might even make a suitable double feature with Larry Clark’s Kids, though it lacks that film’s tragic naivete.
How would audiences react to this screening?
An audience might enjoy Everything Will Be Fine in the End for its dry humor and stylish portrayal of life on the Boulevard, or they might dissect it for its visual choices or moral ambiguity.
How would this film make your organization stand out?
Organizations that choose to screen Everything Will Be Fine in the End would stand out as supporters of independent voices in film.