If you read any number of reviews for writer/director Alexander Ullom’s new movie It Ends, you’ll probably see people comparing it to the play No Exit from French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. May say the movie was influenced by the play, or that It Ends is at least a “retelling” of No Exit. Variety asked Ullom if the play had actually had any influence on his movie. He responded:
“I didn’t even know what [No Exit] was at the time [of making the movie], but I’m more than grateful that anyone is comparing it to anything.”
It Ends is now in theaters. It puts viewers on a road trip with four young adults who are just out of college and about to enter the next phase of their life. As they drive down a road in a forest, they begin to suspect that there is no end, and there is no exit.
No Exit is a 1944 play about three people in the afterlife who are locked in a room together.
Both stories are existential in nature. Though, the famous line from No Exit is “Hell is other people,” while the message of It Ends seems to be something more like “Hell is having no future.”
I like Alexander Ullom’s response to the comparison though. He seems happy for it, but he also makes it clear he was just putting his own feelings into story form.
