User Reviews

This movie felt like another of Keira Knightley's films, "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World," except it was much less funny. This film never made me laugh, or even smile. It has some awkward quirky moments where the writer attempts humor, but misses the mark.

The basic premise is the government has announced that the world is ending, and they've handed out "exit pills" (suicide pills) to the population so that they don't needlessly suffer. Except for illegal aliens and the homeless. Because according to the film, "they don't count." Ironically, as you'll later find out, this might mean the meek shall indeed inherit the Earth.

In the first act you find out that the end comes from an environmental disaster that has created a toxic cloud moving across the globe that kills people by liquifying their organs. They really don't even try to touch on the science about what caused it, but it is said in the dialogue that humanity has polluted the world to the point that "the world spews it all back us." To avoid an agonizing death, the government is actively promoting that everyone should take the exit pill.

Old college friends gather at a country estate for one last Christmas party before the toxic clouds arrive, and they take their government-provided "exit pills" to avoid dying said horrible death. This part of the movie was a little like a millennial version of the 1983 movie "The Big Chill." Which also had old college friends from the boomer generation gather for a weekend reunion.

There is an interracial lesbian couple, an interracial heterosexual couple, and two white heterosexual couples with kids, kids who drop a lot of F-bombs.

The second act they all drink, dance, play games, reminisce and tell each other awkward and inappropriate secrets about their past. I sense that the writer wanted some of this to be funny but in my opinion really missed the mark.

We learn that one of the characters is pregnant and doesn't want to take the pill because she doesn't want to kill her baby.

One of the other couple's sons also doesn't want to take the pill because he wants to survive, and questions the government's narrative. This uncertainty regarding the narrative's validity is shared by several other characters. Maybe the government and scientists are lying, maybe they are just mistaken.

At the start of the third act the son who proclaims he isn't going to take the pill runs off, he finds a car by the side of the road with a family in it that have all taken the exit pill and are dead. The boy begins to scream as one of the toxic dust devils blows in exposing him to the toxin. His father picks him up and takes him back to the house, where he announces it's time to take the pills. There are some more awkward quirky moments which follow.

In the end, they all take the pill except the youngest son, who they believe is dead from exposure to the mysterious toxic cloud. He is unconscious and has bled from his eyes, nose, mouth and ears. .

The final scene we see it is morning. The cloud is gone, and it's bright snowy morning. We then get a cinematic survey confirming that everyone has indeed committed suicide-even the young pregnant woman who didn't want to kill her unborn child finally gave in to her boyfriend's insistence that they "go together." The lesbian has stabbed to death her lover because her lover vomited up the exit pill, the scene shows them both dead on the kitchen floor.

The final shot is on the face of the young boy who earlier we assumed had died and thus didn't take the pill. He opens his eyes. Confirming that he has survived. The government lied or was wrong. Then the credits roll.

Filming for this movie wrapped before the COVID lockdowns. Which I think is a strange coincidence because it lightly touched on several themes that we're all dealing with today. Should you blindly trust the media and authorities?

I'm not sure how I'd categorize this film. It's not a serious piece of fiction. It most certainly wasn't a comedy, and it wasn't much of a horror movie either. With that said, I kind of enjoyed it because of the actors.

Can't think of a better metaphor for the end of the last two years. What if only the rebels and the poor actually end up being correct? As another reviewer pointed out, the film is only slightly above average, but the ending is worth the entire experience. Ignore the hate, enjoy the ride, and reflect on the final cutaway shot.

It's odd to be positive about a movie that makes you feel like you've been run over. But really, truly positive I am.

I'm writing these first few lines as the end credits still run and I feel like I've just watched a really long version of the video for Ultravox's 'Dancing with tears in my eyes' combined with the ending to 'The Mist'. This obviously isn't a jolly, Christmassy feeling but it's impressive when a movie has an impact like that.

It's heavy and intense. It's a thought experiment. It's surreal and horribly close to home at the same time. It might be reminiscent of a few other things, but the Christmas aspect makes it original.

I also think it's well-acted. Some people say it's all over the place, going from joking to crying in the space of two minutes, but I think that's part of the point. Once you know what the situation is, the way they act is appropriate in my opinion - knowing what is about to come, I think you can expect people to be manic, forced, unnatural, erratic, and that's how it's acted.

Reading through the reviews, I'm rather astounded at how many people have not truly watched it. If you did, and you didn't like it, that's your prerogative, of course. But I've seen a few reviewers summarise the impending doom as 'poison by the Russians', meaning you didn't actually listen properly to the dinner table conversation in which this was explained.

And if you want to stop watching after fifteen minutes, sure, you do you - but come on, don't leave a review when you haven't properly seen the film.

Then there are people who say this is about the pandemic. Don't people know how long it takes to write, plan, cast and then actually make a film?! This was thought out and at least partially filmed pre-covid, people!

It's not about Brexit either, nor is it a feature on the problems of millennial parenting (I'm serious - one reviewer actually interpreted it that way). There's really no point in proper parenting on your whole family's last day...

It's not 'woke' either; it briefly mentions that the situation has to do with the way humans treat the earth, but that's more tp partially explain it than to preach because it's never mentioned again (and if that already triggers your cognitive dissonance - maybe do something about it?).

And then there are the people who can't handle the swearing. To those people I say - if you wouldn't swear on a day like this I think you are more disturbing that this film's subject matter, ha! But the point is - there's actually a point to the swearing: the children are allowed because of the situation, so I actually thought it added something.

I have to mention the music. There's a real disconnect sometimes and that is, of course, very intentional and it works. The ending is followed by the most haunting, heavy, atmospheric rendition of 'Silent Night' I've ever heard, thanks to Lorne Balfe.

I thought this was a beautiful, difficult, partially surprising, partially predictable, atmospheric, thought provoking, heavy hitting tragicomedy that only the British can pull off.

"Silent Night" will keep you watching till the end, hoping for a twist that might not come? This movie is difficult to place as the story is straightforward and there are no twists. Maybe a small one in the last five seconds. A giant toxic cloud caused by environmental abuse is forecast to sweep in on Boxing Day killing everyone, so this is the last party. But no worries as the entire group have their government-issued suicide pills! Excellent acting performances from the entire cast and outstanding acting from Keira Knightley and Griffin Davis (Jojo Rabbit). This is satire that only can be made in the UK. But there is something undeniably astonishing and inexplicable about seeing the end of the world. And maybe there is more truth in this story then we can imagine. This movie is so bizarre you have to see it.

Not your traditional jolly holly Christmas fare in this movie as you might expect from the title, it started off like it was going to be Abigail's Christmas party but ended up in a much darker, post-apocalyptic place altogether.

Matthew Goode and Keira Knightley are the couple living in a big country house with their three young foul-mouthed sons, into whose abode descends a motley crew of family and friends to on the face of it celebrate Christmas with them. After some initial thumbnail character sketches of all the participants coupled with some awkward attempts at humour and family tensions it seems as if we're in potential "Love Actually" territory but things aren't as they appear. Pretty soon, we discern that they are actually all gathering to carry out a mass suicide to prevent them dying a horrible agonising death from the gaseous fall-out blowing into every corner of the country, leaving no survivors as it goes.

The government's considered response apparently is to issue everyone with a suicide pill to enable them to die in their own ordered way and not succumb to an otherwise painful, disfiguring death from the contagion. Before the end, the film has hit full "And then there were none..." mode although a slightly telegraphed, mildly shocking final scene sheds a new light on proceedings.

I'm all for moving away from and indeed satirising "Hallmark"-type cosy, unctuous seasonal features but this did seem a little too drastic in its intent. The different relationships and tensions between the partygoers are too lightly depicted, while the attempts at humour rarely hit the mark. Quite why the young children have to appear so obnoxious and speak so profanely I'm not sure, unless it was a thinly-veiled attack on the middle and upper classes where apparently it's cool for a parent to sit in alongside two of his teenage sons in a bath.

In these continuing days of Covid and its devastating sweep across the planet and it seems Britain in particular, the film has something to say about how society faces a worldwide pandemic and similarly poses relevant questions about the right to die and assisted suicide. In the end though, as the swell of the moody synthesiser and orchestra grows ever louder, I found it difficult to relate to and sympathise with the plights of this extended, unappealing family. Overall for me the film lacked subtlety and failed to strike an appreciable balance between satirical humour and science-fiction horror.

Still, it made for an alternative to the usual "Deck The Halls" / "Christmas Vacation" nonsense that normally gets served up at this time of year and is worth a watch for that reason alone.

I didn't love this one - honestly it just kind of missed the mark for me on all fronts. I felt wasn't all that funny when it tried to be, was depressing when trying to be ironic, etc. But I'm taking the time to write a review because it seems to me a lot of reviewers actually missed the message it delivers. Keira's comments indicate that this movie was conceived and even filmed before COVID mania really took hold - i'm not sure if that's exactly correct, but if so, it's uncannily timely. The real message of the film, it seems to me, is not environmental doomsday-ism as others indicate (although that message was delivered with all the subtlety of a rusty sledge hammer), but rather a warning against mass hysteria and groupthink.

Spoilers here - the main storyline of the movie is that the media and government have convinced the world that everyone is going to die horribly painful deaths in a series of sort of rolling environmental disasters - toxic clouds are blowing through towns across the world and, they're told, killing everyone in their wake. Video and news coverage (that we never see ourselves) apparently shows people suffering and convulsing after exposure. Obviously the world is therefore terrified, and trying to cope with the knowledge that mankind's days on earth are coming to an end.

The best recourse, ostensibly encouraged by the powers that be in moralistic terms, is to take a conveniently packaged pill to end your own life before the storm comes and brings its suffering with it. And in this twisted narrative, the characters think they're doing the right and humanitarian thing by even preemptively killing their own children.

We see along the way, however, that there are actually holes in the narrative and what's actually known, but those questions are immediately quashed, and anyone asking them is branded as, essentially, a fool and/or bad person. Is it really the environment fighting back, or is some foreign government behind it all? How do we really know that it's killing people? What if the pill isn't needed and we're actually killing ourselves to serve someone else's diabolical ends? Non-mainstream social media outlets viewed in private by some characters seem to offer different narratives entirely. But as these questions and doubts pop up here and there, the people asking them are immediately shut down, the people asking them shamed and ostracized for going against the grain. They're unambiguously branded as "bad" for daring to question.

Then, as we've suspected all along, we find in the very end that in actual fact the clouds are not necessarily killing people, it's apparently survivable. And we see that the whole world has been engaged in global hysteria and groupthink, unnecessarily ending their lives in a planetary, Jim Jones-style fashion. And we're left wondering, is that kind of global hysteria and groupthink possible? And are the cultural echo-chambers (news, social media, entertainment, etc) that we all are aware of creating the perfect environment for blind devotion to dangerous narratives, wrapped up as moral duty and righteousness? What happens when, as a society, we start to view the questioning and challenging of authority and the national narrative as moral failures?

Again, I really don't know if this was actually written before COVID as implied by some of the comments I've read, but if so, it's uncannily timely. Regardless, it's social commentary that isn't limited to the context of public health, but rather offers a somewhat cynical observation of just how far we've gone down the road of "don't question the narrative, or you're bad." And in doing so, it doesn't really lean left or right really, just holds up a mirror to our own blind biases and the blind, pseudo-moralistic groupthink that is the real threat to our future as a species.

Spoiled galore, beware:

During Christmas time, a group of friends collect in a country house to have one last night of camaraderie before the impending apocalypse, which is presented as poisonous cloud storms that once inhaled kill you in a painful death.

To avoid the painful death, the government, sends you a painless suicide pill so you can "die with dignity" instead of painful. The campaign has worked and people are taking this pill, and thus dying peacefully instead of painfully.

This group of friends has gathered to all die with dignity together. Along with their children.

However, in this house of long time friends, there is a boy named Arthur (the youngest son of two parents), who is not jaded in the sense that he will just believe anything he hears, and his critical thinking is through the rough. After some consideration, He doesn't want to take the pill. His parents argue with him and he runs away, inhaling one of the poisonous cloud storms and suffering a painful death, bleeding out the eyes. Everyone else takes their pills and dies. Once everyone's dead. Arthur, the only one who didn't take the pill, wakes up.

Roll credits.

So-don't believe everything your government tells you and don't swallow the pills they hand out after their long campaign of die with dignity.

What's more likely to happen in this apocalyptic scenario: people would feel their impending doom and instead of dying with dignity have a blackout-riot and murder/pillage until their painful death. The mentally divergent would suffer till the end of their own choosing, or take the pill. The rich people would be too entitled to die in general and die anyway.

I really think the only people who would take this pill would have already been experiencing suicidal ideation.

But that's just my opinion.

Great dark comedy with wasted moments! Will everyone be this tranquil when death is upon Them! Why didn't the writers have the chickens waking the boy at the End!(LOL)