Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (
Romanian: Nu aștepta prea mult de la sfârșitul lumii) is a 2023
black comedy film written and directed by
Radu Jude. It stars
Ilinca Manolache with supporting performances by
Nina Hoss and
Uwe Boll. It is a co-production among Romania, Croatia, France and Luxembourg.
The film has been described as a "(t)ale of Cinema and Economics in Two Parts: overworked and underpaid, Angela drives around the city of Bucharest to film the casting for a 'safety at work video' commissioned by a multinational company."[7] The film contains footage (sometimes put into slow motion or still frame) of a 1981 film about a female taxi driver in
Bucharest (Angela merge mai departe, by
Lucian Bratu) as well as Angela's own
Tiktok videos. The second half of the film consists of the shooting of the safety promotion campaign video in front of the entrance to the chosen employee's factory.
Mubi had acquired all rights of the film for the US, as well as streaming rights in Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, India, Turkey and Latin America.[12] The film was released on Mubi on 4 May 2024.
The film was released theatrically in Romania on 27 October 2024.[13]
Reception
On the
review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes, 98% of 66 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "As unique and breathlessly expansive as its title, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World adds to the evidence supporting Radu Jude's status as a uniquely gifted and provocative filmmaker."[14]
In his review for The Guardian,
Peter Bradshaw described Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World as follows: "Freewheeling essay-movie-slash-black-comedy collage takes swipes from all angles at modern life.".[15] Matthew Joseph Jenner, writing for the
International Cinephile Society, stated that the film is "a truly ambitious, beautifully complex, and deeply compelling masterpiece of purely playful postmodernism, which has never been more urgently required than it is at the present moment".[16] The film also received very positive reviews in
Indie Wire,[17]Le Monde,[18] D Movies,[19]Screen Daily[20] and Deadline,[21] among others.[22][23]
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World was ranked seventh on Cahiers du Cinéma's top 10 films of 2023 list.[24]