Critic Reviews

It is gruesome and violent and scatalogical, but then it is funny and pointed and wry, and then it defers to a tender look, or an affectionate touch, and shows its heart. Lesser shows would give you whiplash, but the tone here is uniquely its own, and just perfectly, recognisably, The End of the F***ing World.

The eight-part series, which arrives in a semi-surprise drop on Netflix Friday after debuting on the U.K.’s Channel 4, is a surprising tour de force, mashing up the pitch-black humor of British alternative comedies with the visual punch of an auteur-driven indie film. It’s also mercifully short. Individual episodes top out at around 20 minutes, making the series eminently bingeable, and giving it a taut, concise structure that more new shows could stand to mimic.

It’s funny, and it’s sweet; it’s violent, and it’s romantic. Its leads are both reprehensible and totally sympathetic; both scared kids and responsible adults. It seems the mark of an honest production that the characters are arrestingly recognizable--and revealed so thoroughly to the audience that judging them feels impossible. By the end I was unsure if I wanted them rounded up by the authorities or free to go out in a blaze of glory; the only thing I was sure of was I wished there were more episodes.

Within the first five minutes, we get flashbacks to a nine-year-old James sticking his hand in a deep fryer just to feel something, and abundant evidence that he kills small animals. The show actually gets much darker from there. But also, somehow, much more lovable.

These eight riveting short episodes are out of this world, a binge made in adolescent hell. [8-21 Jan 2018, p.13]

The twisted, efficient story that The End tells is a nicely contained thing that requires no additional embellishment, and it should be binged and cherished in its tart glory.

Ultimately, and in the most absurd (and therefore enticingly watchable) of manners, The End of the F***ing World is a heartwarming romance.

The thing that The End of the F***ing World smartly does is never let you forget that Jim and Alyssa are like wild animals you think you have tamed, at any moment they might turn on you and bite. Also, kudos to the series for its offbeat selections of songs.

Written by Charlie Covell and directed by Jonathan Entwistle, The End of the F***ing World takes more unexpected narrative turns as it goes on, and that makes it worth watching, assuming you can muscle your way through the accompanying gloom and occasional gore. Both Lawther and Barden have a capacity to go from deadpan to deeply agitated in an instant, and those shifts become more compelling the more you watch.

World has some terrific set pieces, such as the duo’s sloppy robbery of a gas station, and some dull patches, such as a meeting with Alyssa’s father late in the series that almost drags the story to a halt. But overall, James and Alyssa are ultimately two people we care about, and Lawther and Barden give exceptional, subtle performances.