I was really excited about this concept, and naively went into it with high hopes. But with this kind of theme, everything hinges on whether the cast and crew create an aura of fear and doom. There wasn't anything even close to that. So I consider this film a failure.
Having said that, like many movies, it had redeeming qualities that kept me in the game 'til the end. I love the idea of high tech yuppies going native in Mendocino. They use their millions made from being movers and shakers in the mainstream world, to then retreat from that same world.
Interestingly, I didn't hear any angry manifestos from our husband and wife protagonists/property owners. While narrating, the man explains that he went to his property because he sensed an apocalypse would come eventually. He didn't say that he hated the world per say, and they weren't living like real hippies. They had a nice home with modern conveniences.
Yeah sure, it rips off The Big Chill, but I forgive them for that. It's what you do with it that matters. I didn't quite understand the politics of the property owners, their former male business partner, or the Gaby Hoffman character. I think some of them were hybrid. We were supposed to see them as Libs., but they were business people and loving parents.
What the film did convey effectively, is that friendship is messy. We don't necessarily give it up just because our friends betray us from time to time. When we make real friends, we become an intimate part of the other person's life. This is so even between exes. If you had a reasonably amicable split, you are still a major part of someone else's life story, and often you can't just disentangle from that.
Some of our characters did learn things about themselves, which is always good in a character-driven relationship picture. Some might say that there were no noble souls in this film, but I think Adrian Grenier's character came close. He didn't cheat on anyone, he tried to do the right thing, and he tried to quarterback the scenario.
***I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the allegorical nature of the "Daily Bubble." Some of the characters lived in a bubble of intellectualism, idealism,and narcissism to a degree. But how long can you do that without something bursting your bubble? Well, each day they would launch a new bubble and see how long it would last. Not even the end of the world was going to prevent them from trying to perpetuate the bubble.
