Nearly 15 years after Don McKellar ended it all in Last Night (1998), the world endures, and so does the question: how will doomsday affect one's love life? For Dodge (Steve Carell), things can only improve. His wife has ditched him. His friends have gone nuts. On the bright side, he has been promoted to CEO at the insurance company where he doggedly keeps working. But he has no one to share the final days before an asteroid wipes us out. And then kooky Penny (Keira Knightley) shows up outside his window. Could the two find something to live for, however briefly? In her directorial debut, Lorene Scafaria doesn't flinch from the big questions, though she does fall back on some easy answers. A wry metaphor for our common fate, the film is like Melancholia with Burt Bacharach on the soundtrack instead of Wagner. Generic consolations soften its edges, but in the end the loss and triumph are the same. (To read an interview with director Lorene Scafaria, go to thePhoenix.com/outsidetheframe.)
