Saw this back at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival
"When You Finish Saving the World" isn't the best A24 production but the movie is still engaging and fun due to the realistic nature between the characters portrayed by Julianne Moore and Finn Wolfhard and the captivating tone presented throughout. Eisenberg isn't an actor that I am incredibly invested in but he has played some really good movies over the past years in the 2010s decades of cinema. This movie displays that for an actor, his directing talents does shine quite a bit.
What makes the movie interesting is due to the characters and the engaging narrative Eisenberg presents. The characters are seen as mean, narcissistic and quite all over the place. I understand if people will be annoyed by this kind's of characters but the fact is that in real life, people can be different and mean. That's what makes it very nature and interesting. The production designs are very good, Wolfhard's singing is surprisingly pretty good and the tone is perfectly paced.
The problem is that sometimes the writing does feel flat because it is pretty predictable from the beginning to end at times. Secondly, certain dialogue spoken from the actors felt really off as if the words were written by some robot.
Overall, it is a pretty good debut despite it's flaws. It's definitely not for everyone but I recommend this if you are a lover of A24's projects.
Rating: B.