Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World review: Initially fascinating satire descends into frustration

Selected cinemas; Cert TBC

Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World

Chris Wasser

Awarded a Best Film prize by the Dublin Film Critics Circle at this year’s Dublin International Film Festival, Radu Jude’s ballsy Romanian satire boasts some clever ideas and a terrific lead. But I’m afraid I didn’t quite share the enthusiasm of my DFCC friends.

An underappreciated production assistant (Ilinca Manolache’s Angela) drives around Bucharest interviewing potential candidates for a workplace safety video commissioned by an Austrian multinational. Most of these candidates sustained life-changing injuries at work, and it’s up to a chilly marketing director (Nina Hoss) to decide who gets to tell their story. Simple, but there’s a catch: the company wants the disabled workers to lie on camera. Along the way, Angela indulges in a peculiar hobby: pretending to be an Andrew Tate-esque head-the-ball on TikTok.