‘Another End’ Review: Gael García Bernal Sci-Fi Drama Loses Its Head in the Clouds

Berlin 2024: While director Pierro Messina’s futuristic reflection on grief is plenty thought-provoking, frustrations abound

Gael García Bernal in "Another End" (Courtesy of Indigo Film)
Gael García Bernal in "Another End" (Courtesy of Indigo Film)

A mixed bag of provocative sci-fi concepts brought half to life with somnambulant follow-through, Pierro Messina’s futuristic mortality drama “Another End” leaves you bittersweet and wistful. You’re grateful for the time spent with a genuine epic of ideas and rueful that such heady themes weren’t more fully explored in a better film.

Imagining a world where living surrogates might be used to carry the memories and minds of the recently deceased, the filmmakers cannot be faulted for lack of thematic ambition  — only within this bout of imaginative world-building, they’ve managed to find the least interesting story to tell.

That story belongs to Sal (Gael García Bernal), a recently widowed 40-something, himself sleepwalking through an unnamed glass-and-steel metropolis as polished as it is alienating.

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