‘Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World’ Review – Radu Jude Turns The Camera Back On The World

Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude’s (Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn) latest film is a biting, satirical drama about the exploitation of workers and families in modern-day Romania. Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World is led by an impressive performance from Ilinca Manolache as Angela, a production assistant who spends her days endlessly driving around town to interview citizens who’ve been injured by work accidents to appear in a “work safety” video.

The irony isn’t lost on anyone here. It may even be the point. Jude centers his film around the fact that life is full of contradictions, hypocrites, liars, and cheats, and those who aren’t are the ones who get completely taken advantage of. The film does not offer any redeemable characters. There’s no one showing how being righteous leads to prosperity. It’s just the wicked in cahoots with each other, who also despise each other. 

In this, Jude’s film finds a bevy of humorous insights. He shines a massive light on the corruption and degradation that comes with unfettered capitalism, not just on the city, but on the human body. Angela racks up the miles on her car driving for 12- 16 hour days, and the longer she’s forced to work with little sleep and a ton of coffee, the lower her empathy becomes. This becomes apparent in the final scene which lasts over 20 minutes and is shot in one take. You get to see the manipulation, deception, and coercion involved in the creation of this corporate propaganda film. Nowhere is this more evident in a scene involving Nina Hoss as the representative face of this multinational corporation who speaks with an empathetic tone, and puts on a friendly face, but is only hiding the true intentions she shares with the company. 

It’s also heartbreaking to know these overworked, lower-level workers, wrecked by poverty and in desperate need, are doing whatever they can to get out of their predicament, even if it means destroying someone else. The film is appropriately titled in this sense referring to the idea that people will always be what they are, even when it all comes down. 

Along with the main story with Angela, there’s a flashback story dealing with a female taxi driver and how she met her husband. While interesting and well-acted, the story remains mostly disconnected from everything else going on. Its loose tie-in is that they end up becoming one of the people involved in the interviews Angela is conducting later. It’s not nearly a significant aspect of the film for it to be incorporated and revisited as much as it is throughout the film. These segments tend to slow the film down considerably and end up overinflating the runtime with little to no payoff. 

What is significant, however, is Angela’s Tik-Tok alter-ego of Bobiță. She uses a male face filter to say misogynistic, anti-Semitic, and other uncouth things. Through this, she mocks Western sensibilities, cultural sensitivities, and those in the manosphere parts of the internet. It is darkly humorous, but it’s an aspect of the film that highlights the escapism people are so desperately looking for while also pointing out how that same escapism and fantasy becomes more alluring than real life, and how tragic it becomes when people buy into it.  

Do Not Expect Too Much… is a deeply satirical dark comedy with a charged and incisive take on the world. The film tears into everything from worker exploitation to political correctness to gender norms all the way even to film criticism. Made for those with the thickest of skins, the darkest senses of humor, and a willingness to look at the world through an honest, albeit scathing, point of view.

Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World is currently playing in select theaters courtesy of MUBI. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0uh5i-SEW8]