From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Hours" comes a story that chronicles a dozen years in the lives of two best friends who couldn't be more different. From suburban Cleveland in the 60s, to New York City in the 80s, where they meet an older woman, the film charts a journey of trials, triumphs, loves and losses. Now the question is: can they navigate the unusual triangle they've created and hold their friendship together? [TRAILER]

STEVEN SNYDER'S REVIEW

There are enough confused moments in “A Home at the End of the World” to make one question if director Michael Mayer truly understands his material; moments about sex, dependency and homosexuality that are handled with the same carelessness and recklessness that leads most mainstream romances to sputter and implode.

When it takes the time to notice, it occasionally works as a character study of a frightened young boy who grows up into a frightened young man, and his desperate quest to find acceptance and validation. He is Bobby (Colin Farrell), who as a boy watches his mother and brother die and then as a teenager comes home to find his dad dead in bed.

To cope with this, he clings to people. First it is Jonathan (Dallas Roberts), a shy friend from high school who, it slowly emerges, is gay. Bobby returns his affections to keep him close, they continue experimenting with each other sexually, and they comfort each other through the pains of growing up. When Bobby’s dad dies, he moves in with Jonathan’s family, and becomes similarly attached to Jonathan’s mother (Sissy Spacek), who is in an ineffectual marriage and enjoys his company and interest.

Bobby stays with Jonathan’s family until he is 24, when finally they move south for health reasons and he moves in with Jonathan who has relocated to the progressive end of New York City. While there he falls for Clare (Robin Wright Penn), Jonathan’s roommate, they begin seeing each other, but there is still always a twinge of affection – both sexual and plutonic – between the two boyhood friends.

Then, in the blink of an eye, a baby enters the equation, some characters have died, others uproot their lives, and disease threatens to destroy everything.

The flaw of this film is that none of these shocks feel ingrained in the story. They are not surprises that emerge naturally, but twists that rain down on the story from above, arbitrarily dictating its direction.

This shortcoming can be felt in numerous scenes. Why does Clare ever care for Bobby in the first place? Is Bobby gay, or just needy? When does Jonathan get jealous about his parent’s affection for Bobby? Does Jonathan’s mother care for Bobby as a son, or as something more? At what point does Clare, as a new mother, decide to abandon her friends?

In some films, this very ambiguity would invite interpretation and insight. But in “End of the World,” it does not invite us into the story, but keeps us at a distance. Things happen, and we are told to accept the fact and move on.

It would all likely work better if we had some feeling as to what Mayer thought of this story. As Bobby, Farrell gives a bold and brilliant performance, burying a life’s worth of insecurities and desperation behind his calm and boyish façade, and creating a character whose need to please, and fear of abandonment, is heartbreakingly honest.

But Mayer tells us repeatedly to cherish the home that Bobby finds with Jonathan and Clare, rather than feel sympathy for this desperate character who never had a chance at a normal life. Consequently the story drifts away from his complex persona, focusing instead on this trio, their happiness, and the unfounded and unforeseeable melodrama that threatens to destroy their surreal bubble of happiness.

Just like the horribly bland Ben Affleck romance “Bounce” or the idealistic and sappy “Maid in Manhattan,” the movie ceases being about complex characters or their emotions and becomes instead a pattern of conflict and response, Mayer using a mix of music, iconography and clichés to tell us what these characters are feeling, rather than helping us to judge them ourselves.

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