When is seeking a friend for the end of the world

That buys you a certain amount of leniency. More annoying is the fact that all the road movie work is undone, with characters showing up at previous locations as if no time would have to pass for them to return.

The platonic nature of their relationship is initially what made the movie so refreshing. As well acted and beautifully shot by David Gordon Green regular Tim Orr and admittedly occasionally clever the script is, none of it is enough.

Bring on the apocalypse. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! But the welcome affirmation of their increasing mutual affection is offset by less acceptable elements.

Another, of more sweeping concern, is the implicit message that, in a world without God, romance is the only source of salvation. The film contains fleeting blasphemous humor, brief but intense violence with gore, drug use, underage drinking, cohabitation, off-screen premarital sexual activity, a couple of uses of profanity and much rough and crude language.

The Catholic News Service classification is L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling.

Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. With an asteroid on course to obliterate all life on Earth within a few weeks, a soft-spoken conformist Steve Carell and his free-spirited, British-born neighbor Keira Knightley set off on a road trip. He wants to reconnect with his high-school sweetheart, while she hopes to find transport back to England all airline flights have been discontinued so she can repair frayed ties with her semi-estranged family.

The tone of her script warms as its focus shifts to the deepening bond between the opposites-attract main pair. Werner Herzog would start a film. In "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World," Steve Carell plays an insurance salesman but finds little point in selling a whole-life policy.

An asteroid 70 miles wide is on a collision path with Earth, and governments have announced it will slam into its target in three weeks' time. To me, even worse than this catastrophe would be foreknowledge of it. To die is one thing.

How much worse to know that all the life that ever existed on this planet, and all it ever achieved, was to be obliterated? Dodge Carell looks a little gloomy at the best of times. Now life is really piling on. A space-shuttle mission to destroy the asteroid has failed, and to make things worse, Dodge's wife has walked out on him and joined the man she really loves.

The end of the world is hardly a rare subject for movies; recently we've had " Melancholia " and " Another Earth ," and who could forget Don McKellar's bittersweet " Last Night " ? Lorene Scafaria , the writer-director of this film, approaches the subject as an opportunity for melancholy satire and some gentle romance. It amounts to sort of a romanic comedy, although it makes no promises of providing a happy ending. Some people riot in the streets.

There are looters, determined to have a new big-screen TV, no matter how few days are left to watch it. There are orgies and mass baptisms. Cable news inevitably attaches a catchphrase and some theme music to the apocalypse. Radio stations have countdowns. Dodge, alone and lonely in his apartment, unexpectedly finds himself caring for a dog. That's when I realized what I would do if I knew the world was ending.