“The End of the Line” is a funny little number because everything fits and nothing fits. The story feels awkward, collecting elements from various movies that we’ve seen before. A bearded, hooded fellow (looking like a darker-eyed, more serious Richard Linklater) really has nowhere to go in life, but to follow the instructions of whomever tells him what to do, mainly in being handed a package and being told where to deliver it. In voiceover, he tells us who he is, and it could work without the voiceover, but at the same time, the film may not even survive without it. A white-shirted man comes upon him as he awakens from sleeping on the grass in front of his house and offers to drive him wherever he needs to go. We learn nothing of this other guy, just that he’s friendly enough. Even with how strange it is that he suddenly shows up like that, and helps out the main guy, the man seems to fit right in there, right in the midst of nowhere. The existential ending seems clichéd at first, but reasonable enough. Considering where this guy lives, there’s no one who could really track him down to find out if their package was delivered and in that sense, the package doesn’t truly matter anyway. In some way, we’re being asked what really matters in life, but it all depends on where you live and whose package you take.
“The End of the Line” benefits most, however, from a low-key music score that perfectly encapsulates this small area of nothing, while the moody cinematography is perfect in every way possible, and the opening credits are quite clever. “The End of the Line” is in some way like an out-of-the-way diner. It may mean everything, it may mean nothing, but it’s there. And tucked into a site that seems to be in the far corner of the Internet, where not many visit most likely (not yet anyway, I’ll bet), it just feels right. It doesn’t quite make sense, but it’s alright by me.
