When You Finish Saving the World Quicktake: Well-written, Funny, Great Performances
What should we make of people who do the right thing for the wrong reasons? Would their karmic score be net positive or negative in the universe’s grand scheme?
Life is messy and complicated, and sometimes good people do bad things. And as we see in When You Finish Saving the World, sometimes self-centred people act in service of others.
This contemplative character study is actor Jesse Eisenberg’s directorial debut. The film centres on the emotional tug of war between mother Evelyn (Julianne Moore) and her son Ziggy (Finn Wolfhard). The narcissistic duo is more alike than they care to admit, and as a result, loathe each others’ company.
Evelyn is a social worker with a saviour complex. She behaves like the white heroes in all those problematic Kevin Costner films. Ziggy is a self-obsessed wanna-be musician who only cares about performing for his legion of social media followers. (He has 20,000 subscribers on a platform called Hi-hat).
Ziggy is one of those jerk teens who isn’t scared to curse out his parents when things don’t go his way. As if that’s not bad enough, he’s so entitled he expects an apology after chewing them out. So we get why Evelyn takes to Kyle (Billy Brykat), a warm-hearted teenager staying at the domestic abuse victims shelter where she works. Kyle is all the things she wishes Ziggy would be, and it’s not long before Evelyn treats Kyle like her personal passion project.
Ziggy is a self-obsessed entertainer who thinks he’s god’s gift to the world. He’s an unremarkable talent and a social media cliché. I see a dozen Ziggy’s every time we scroll through Instagram for more than five minutes. What makes the character compelling is that we meet him at one of the most pivotal points in life. This self-centred kid is flirting with becoming self-aware. He’s starting to grasp the universe doesn’t revolve around Ziggy Katz.
We all must learn the world doesn’t revolve around us at some point. Some of us realize this in childhood or adolescence. And some people figure it out as a young adult. Sadly, too many people never make this obvious connection. These folks end up moving through the world as emotionally toxic vortexes.
Ziggy exists right at the tipping point where he can go either way. I spent the movie waiting for the lightbulb to flash on above the kid’s big dopey head. I never liked the character, but I always understood him, and I stayed invested in his emotional journey every step of the way.
Wolfhard is spot-on as a snotty teen. Ziggy is a child of privilege who somehow thinks the deck is stacked against him. Credit to Wolfhard for fearlessly committing to embodying a self-absorbed brat. He doesn’t rely on the teen heartthrob charisma he developed on Stranger Things. He’s not afraid to be daft and unlikeable, and Ziggy is a better character for it. Wolfhard also holds his own against Moore, one of this era’s unassailable talents.
Moore is a force of nature playing a well-meaning Karen. Evelyn is equal parts self-aggrandizing and passive-aggressive. It’s a delicious personality cocktail that makes Evelyn riveting every second she’s on-screen.
I appreciate the amount of restraint Eisenberg applies to this film. He calls out our collective narcissism and performative wokeness without resorting to the finger-wagging we see from less confident filmmakers. Eisenberg lets the characters’ actions speak for themselves and allows viewers to draw their own conclusions.
Ziggy and Evelyn may be assholes, but we learn it’s because they’re struggling. They’re driven by obsessions that mask the voids they feel inside themselves. At the end of the day, they fill those voids by helping other people, even if their motivated by self-interest.
Ziggy’s 20,000 subscribers get something out of the experience. He’s providing them with a few moments of pleasure, so does it matter if he’s desperately feeding off them like an attention vampire? Are Ziggy’s fans aware the relationship is transactional? Does that question even matter if they end Ziggy’s live streams with smiles on their faces?
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