Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s most recent collaboration, The Worlds End, is much like their previous collaborations in that it elucidates a seemingly endemic fear of monotony. Shaun of the Dead limned this with slow, staggering, brain-hungry zombies; Hot Fuzz saw a town consumed by a perfection-driven cult. In The World’s End, we watch the sleepy town of Newton Haven become a hamlet replete with blue-goo filled clones.
Since the strange and uncanny are often introduced about halfway through a Wright / Pegg film, the inclusion of clones should be no surprise. What is sort of a surprise is Pegg’s turn as derelict Gary King, a now-near forty male whose shining moment came when he was eighteen and he and his brood of friends attempted to complete the Golden Mile, a legendary pub crawl that covers twelve pubs, beginning with “The First Post” and ending at “The World’s End.”
However, their attempt fizzles after pub number 9, “The Beehive,” so the crawl is ultimately a failure, something that continues to bother Gary as his life hardly moves past his adolescence. As we meet him, he sits in an Alcoholic Anonymous-type circle. His scruffy beard and head of hair bespeak his struggles, as do his chain smoking and black-circled eyes. Gary’s longing to complete the mile is sad in the sense that the result is, most likely, vomiting, and an incapacitation, pounding headache. But it also illustrates how trapped in the past Gary is – while his four former chums have all grown up, fostered careers, found wives, had children, etc.
While Pegg is rather hilarious as King, it’s difficult to determine the ethos he and Wright put forth. King is automatically the outsider because he is a scruffy lush, while the other four, Oliver (Martin Freeman), Peter (Eddie Marsan), Steven (Paddy Considine), and Andrew (Nick Frost), are the seemingly upstanding members of society. Reluctantly, each agrees to follow Gary along the mile, and as they progress issues come to the surface. Some issues have to do with Gary, others their own lives.
Regardless, the dynamic becomes a bit of a mess in that the group’s overarching condition seems to be that they are all unhappy in one way or another. And, in this unhappiness, the majority of them revert to their teenage selves, which upends the social hierarchy, placing King on top as the one who isn’t afraid to buck social norms. By default, he becomes their king, their leader, their spokesperson.
There is nothing wrong with the reprobate hero, and, as always, it’s entertaining to watch Pegg and Frost banter back and forth while pummeling their way through bodies, but the connection between the clones and King’s friends’ venture to socially constructed monotony is a bit loose and awfully cynical, particularly when we’re privy to a final Pegg / Frost speech that ultimately boils down to: We’d rather keep screwing up and being human than trying to be perfect.
Monotony is definitely dangerous and boring. There’s no argument here. However, regression and using substance to cope are equally as dangerous. In truth, four of the five characters here are practically borderline. Each appears composed and together, showing no signs of repressed anger or emotions, but they certainly have no problem – despite their protests – binge drinking.
Pegg and Frost’s thesis might be that, in the hardest of times – like humankind being taken over by replacement clones – the outsider is the best asset to have, and this is a valid thesis, but The World’s End also suggests self-destruction is more productive than facing a world in which – at its best times – is still a bumpy ride.
