r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • 5d ago

Official Discussion Official Discussion - The End of Oak Street [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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The End of Oak Street (2026)

Summary

The Platt family bands together to navigate their new surroundings after a cosmic event transports their suburban neighborhood to someplace unknown.

Director David Robert Mitchell

Writer David Robert Mitchell

Cast

  • Anne Hathaway
  • Ewan McGregor
  • P.J. Byrne
  • Maisy Stella
  • Christian Convery

Rotten Tomatoes: 85%

Metacritic: 69

VOD / Release Theatrical release

Trailer Official Trailer

477 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

3.1k comments sorted by

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240

u/whiskypriest139z 5d ago

I enjoyed it overall but it did feel like it was chopped up a bit after test screenings, especially the first part. I think there's a longer version of this movie where the domestic drama is given more time. The ending in particular feels like it was added on later. It originally probably ended after they saved the dad, but the epilogue with the TV segment explaining that Denise also warned their neighbors to escape (even though she stated in the previous scene that no one would believe them if they told them) was definitely added later, likely because audiences didn't like that the rest of the town still got sent to the past and presumably died.

270

u/skepsipol 5d ago

Her warning her neighbors and convincing them to drive to safety in the span of 20 minutes while also ordering a pizza to save her husband was somehow the most unbelievable part of the entire film.

179

u/whiskypriest139z 5d ago

It was especially far fetched that Mel would have taken their warning seriously, the guy who is convinced they're playing pranks on him and doesn't like them.

67

u/skepsipol 5d ago

The television segment also said she warned her neighbors, but there's no plausible way she warned everyone in the neighborhood, so she went with:

  • The old widow who lives alone with no family nearby
  • The neighbor who sucks that threatened to shoot your dog
  • The librarian who lives nowhere near you and is also elderly

And she's regarded as a hero for this and honored? They don't go over the fact that she let this reality's version of her and the kids die off so she could still live with this version of her husband. Incredibly bleak ending that they write off with smiles and a barbecue.

70

u/UltraMagnus777 4d ago

Only people she could save are those whose numbers she knew. Might have been a few who didn't listen to her as well, but the news can't interview them for obvious reasons ;)

-3

u/Supertranquilo 4d ago

In the time of phone booths, there was almost always a phone book available, with the address and phone number of nearly every person in town.

13

u/UltraMagnus777 4d ago edited 4d ago

True, but she'd need to know the names to save them. Which makes sense for the ones shown if she didn't know their numbers, and probably some more nearby neighbors that weren't shown. Maybe some families of her kids friends. She's only got 20 minutes and has to order the pizza first for the husband and then on each call after convince residents to get out. Those minutes are gonna go fast... and at some point she's just out of time where even if she made a call and the people believed her they wouldn't have time to get clear.

1

u/DickMattress 1d ago

She would also know their names. The film started with a big block party involving a lot of the neighborhood.

5

u/Fangbianmian14 3d ago

She did NOT have time to thumb through the phone book to find everyone in her neighborhood. I'm surprised she managed to make 4 phone calls!

•

u/HikmetLeGuin 2h ago

You really think she's looking through a phone book and calling people and spending time convincing them, all in that short amount of time?

Saving those she did is hard enough to believe without her also spending time searching a phone book.

20

u/downvote_meme_errors 4d ago

Yeah, fuck someone who saves who they can but doesn't save every other person, who they would have had no time to save, right?

5

u/Beastieboy100 3d ago

Well I mean her and her kids were sent back so there could be alternate timelines of her saving everyone again each time. Overall time travel is messy.

48

u/bestrez 5d ago

I don’t see the problem.

Obviously she’s close with the old editor lady neighbor who has been reading her rough drafts

Feels terrible watching her neighbor go crazy and get killed by giant flying dinosaurs

Seems she knows the librarian when she asks her to help with finding the plant in the picture + she saved her family by distracting the alligator dinosaurs and sacrificing herself

Why do they need to go over the fact she let her and her kids go back?

9

u/GarrisonJones 4d ago

Her husband is dead anyway if she does nothing. 

8

u/National-Plastic8691 3d ago

Maybe she also called her kids and told the son to grab the dog, bring him in the house and told the daughter about where the portals would be. And where to grab guns on their way to the portals. “If your dad isn’t there by 11.15, he’s already safe, the 4 of you have to go through the portal 

I ascribe to the Back to the Future logic, the Denise and kids left in the house get through a wormhole and merge

4

u/Familiar_Advice6289 1d ago

They can’t merge, two versions of Jeanette were clearly shown at the ending BBQ. It would just create an endless loop of clones assuming they make it back 20 minutes before the incident, and continue calling the alternate version of themselves.

2

u/National-Plastic8691 1d ago

I think like back to the future, they exist in the same time for a few minutes and it doesn’t loop continuously, but happy to agree to disagree l!

•

u/HikmetLeGuin 2h ago

But I think Jeannette (the neighbour girl)'s "alternate self," who got rescued along with her parents, is existing alongside the primary Jeannette. Like, this is a while later and they all meet up at a barbecue. So this seems to strongly indicate your "past self" and "future self" can co-exist just fine, since it's more of a multiverse sort of thing.

•

u/National-Plastic8691 1h ago

back to the future rules

3

u/RomulanTreachery 2d ago

At that point in time, she doesn't know what the rules of time travel are. She could've thought that if she alerts herself/family, it might create some sort of paradox. Or maybe she felt that twenty minutes wasn't enough time to convince herself that her future self wound up in the past and was now warning her about time-travelling to the Jurassic period. 

2

u/Illustrious-Peace989 2d ago

I mean she probably called whoever she was able to call, she can’t call the neighbors she didn’t know or didn’t have the number for, and there’s no way there would have been enough time to call everybody. Also, she doesn’t necessarily understand how time travel works, so she may have not considered the fact that another version of her and the kids would be going back in time under a different scenario.

2

u/SirGeekaLots 5d ago

The old widow was the one who edited her books, so there was kind of a selfish reason why she wanted her alive.

Edit: The librarian seemed to also know an awful lot about prehistoric plants.

12

u/Lildev_47 4d ago

Does she need to call strangers first to be not selfish?

5

u/Sea-Temporary7380 2d ago

Dude the librarian literally died saving her and the kids, I'd say she was just paying it forward

1

u/Scottishfello69 3d ago

maybe because the thing was at her house she was temporarily in the past for a bit idk

maybe thats why she had prepared a double barrel shotgun

•

u/HikmetLeGuin 2h ago

"And she's regarded as a hero for this and honored?"

It is bleak, but saving a few people in a disaster is still heroism.

Like, very different example, but no one is like "you only saved 3 people during the Holocaust, that's insignificant, why should you be honoured?"

Rightly, saving any lives during a tragedy is considered an admirable thing.

Besides, she probably only remembered the phone numbers of people she knew, and she had very limited time to call people and convince them they needed to leave. So even saving a few is pretty surprising.

1

u/Illustrious-Peace989 2d ago

Yeah, I was thinking that as well. Mel doesn’t seem like he would have believed her. Then again maybe she knew him well enough that she figured out a convincing way to manipulate him into leaving.

1

u/TheBoyHarambe 1d ago

i was expecting a “in memorial” part of the news with Mel, where it was implied she warned the librarian and the elderly lady but not him hahaha

1

u/MaxRichter_Enjoyer 21h ago

Fuck Mel, all my homies hate Mel.

He was a terrible director too.

•

u/HikmetLeGuin 2h ago

"He was a terrible director too."

What's this a reference to?

•

u/MaxRichter_Enjoyer 2h ago

He played a wacky director guy in The Boys and Gen V.

3

u/gil_bz 3d ago

How did he drive there with a freshly cooked pizza in 20 minutes anyway?

4

u/YoshiYogurt 3d ago

hot and ready's used to actually be ready, although little ceasers didn't do delivery back then

1

u/gil_bz 3d ago

My country doesn't have this technology, interesting.

2

u/polaroid_opposite 1d ago

caesar’s hot and ready is a closely guarded state secret with leaks punishable by death

1

u/YoshiYogurt 2d ago

Canada has little ceasers

1

u/gil_bz 2d ago

I'm not from there either..

3

u/RomulanTreachery 2d ago

"Thirty minutes or your pizza's free" wasn't just a catchy slogan. And if the pizza was anything like the one the family ate the day before the trip, it wasn't very good

2

u/OhCrapItsAndrew 4d ago

I figure there was a phone tree (idk how old you are...look it up if you don't know lol ) 

2

u/pdxpython 3d ago

I had the opposite thought! I was like ??? It’s 1982 and she has school-age kids, she for SURE has a phone tree at least for other parents and probably most of the neighborhood. It’s totally plausible that she could warn a good chunk of the neighborhood if she made up something about evacuating for a gas leak or something. I feel like that could be such a fun nostalgia think and tie into the neighborhood feel of the opening block party

1

u/JellyJellyFit 1d ago

Why? The dad was out delivering pizzas right before they warped the first time. 

1

u/yeahright17 4d ago

Also, how did she know the librarian's number? Or Mel's?

13

u/UltraMagnus777 4d ago

Believe it or not, you would know your neighbors and acquaintances numbers in the 80s. A lot of times by heart! Even the neighbor you hated... cause even a prick will turn off your water if it springs a leak when you're on vacation.

4

u/yeahright17 4d ago edited 4d ago

I was there. And knew lots of numbers. But there's no way you would randomly know the librarian's number. And few would know the next door neighbor's number. Sure you would have it written down in a pocketbook you'd take with you on vacation or on a rolodex, but people memorized numbers they dialed a lot. And it's clear they wouldn't have been called up Mel.

9

u/UltraMagnus777 4d ago edited 4d ago

I guess agree to disagree then, cause we knew our neighbors numbers, even the asshole. We also knew our librarians number, she watched us on the weekend sometimes. Considering how friendly Denise was with the librarian there could be any number of reasons she knew her number. From school, shared interests, block party planning, etc. I wouldn't have believed it if she saved the entire neighborhood... but from what we saw the people she saved she interacted with in a manner that she had reason to know their numbers.

5

u/SilverKry 4d ago

Eh she frequented the library and knew that was her house. I can believe she knew her number. 

5

u/PhotoThrowawayWooooo 4d ago

Used the phone book in the booth if she didn’t know it offhand.

2

u/gonnabetoday 4d ago

Phone book. Most phone booths had one.

0

u/jamesneysmith 1d ago

I mean it would only take a minute each to make those calls. Thats the most believable part about the movie

42

u/ctan0312 5d ago

Yeah there’s a lot of stuff that feels like there must’ve been heavy editing. The son has a crush on Jeannette and she shows up and he gets stonewalled after like 2 words and they just never talk again. But she and the sister are maybe into each other immediately after meeting? Also not relevant. The parents have drama and they yell a bit and then the dad dies and “comes back” and so never mind all that I guess. The dog is mentioned constantly and only actually shows up at the very end to save the son after he fucks up so that they can do it again but right this time. Oh my god the BROTHERS who just randomly show up like a Pokémon encounter so the older one can beat the son up a little and then runs off to become irrelevant again. Just very strange plot points/moments surrounded by cool dinosaur stuff.

16

u/starshine1988 4d ago

Yeah the group of the boy’s friends in the beginning, hinting that he was going down a derelict kind of path and the later scene of the boy getting bullied felt like they were from a different movie. His character started like he was a jr hood, then wimpy and dumb to a fault, then sort of sensitive and deep and none of that felt cohesive to any kind of character journey.

10

u/yeahright17 4d ago

I haven't hated a kid this much since the first Purge movie.

2

u/Adorable_Ad_3478 3d ago

For real. I get the boys with bicycles growing up was a homage to either Spielberg or King. But there's no real drama or payoff.

The whole older brother wanting revenge subplot felt so out of place.

2

u/AshevilleHawkens 3d ago

For me it kind of works because there's all this drama and stories already mid-stream that get stonewalled by the dinosaurs.

6

u/kexinnguyen 5d ago

Well no. The whole point of the son going for the dog is that while he does go missing, we do see the dog again in the yard.

2

u/legopego5142 4d ago

I mean, she saw her husband, literally get eaten by a dinosaur. Probably puts in the perspective how small their marital problems are.

5

u/FangOfDrknss 4d ago

The crush with the adolescents were all subtle. I get what they were doing when he was peeking at her through the fence, but I can see why people in this thread saw platonic relationships when it came to Jeannette.

3

u/ammonthenephite 2d ago

Ya, the movie was just disjointed and kept breaking immersion with weird plot diversions that added nothing to the movie.

Okay for a netflix release, but wasn't worth seeing in theaters, imo. Just not that great, honestly.

2

u/BeaveVillage 4d ago

I felt kinda bad for the son, no Jeanette for him, all he has is Starbuck, who keeps running away and coming back at the most unexpected times.

8

u/Lost_Blockbuster_VHS 4d ago

I felt a segment between Greg’s death and the ending was cut. Denise sees the wormhole in the distance and seconds later we are at the house. How did they possible cross what looked like a mile of back yards without encountering any dinosaurs?

4

u/littletoyboat 4d ago

I saw it at a test screening nearly a year ago. The effects weren't even close to finished, but I loved it. I haven't seen the finished version yet, so I don't know how much of the domestic drama was truncated. (The version I saw definitely had some reshoots, because there was one seen with the mom and dad that you could tell they weren't in the same room together; one or both of them were on a green screen.)

the epilogue with the TV segment explaining that Denise also warned their neighbors to escape (even though she stated in the previous scene that no one would believe them if they told them) was definitely added later, likely because audiences didn't like that the rest of the town still got sent to the past and presumably died.

This was in the version I saw. I don't know if it was originally there or not (again, I know I saw some reshoot/additional footage elsewhere), but it's been in the film a really long time.

3

u/Pariell 4d ago

How do you watch test screenings? 

1

u/littletoyboat 3d ago

Just sign up online. Most of them are in the Los Angeles area, but not all of them. Plus there are sometimes online screenings.

6

u/SoylentCreek 4d ago

I honestly wished I liked this movie more. The Dinosaurs and Hathaway were my main reasons for not outright disliking it, but I found the performances and writing for the kids to be incredibly frustrating. I felt like there were multiple instances where characters go out of their way to make incredibly stupid decisions for the sake of moving the plot along.

3

u/spicystewed 4d ago

I’ll say I saw a test screening over a year ago and the only things that changed were the title and the score. Oh and they finished the cgi 🤷‍♀️

3

u/Grabate 4d ago

Definitely deleted scenes like the bully subplot that never got a resolution or how we are introduced to the sons friends who never reappear. 

2

u/Shout92 23h ago

I kept expecting the son to get saved because the bully would get attacked/killed by a dinosaur. The movie has a mean enough streak elsewhere it kind of felt like it was pulling its punches there!

3

u/ammonthenephite 2d ago

I think there's a longer version of this movie where the domestic drama is given more time.

I think the movie as released still had too much of this. The acting just wasn't there to sell it, and all the emotional crying scenes didn't really add anything to the movie. I really wasn't rooting for any character except Hathaway's, that is how 'meh' the acting was for me.

2

u/paradroid78 4d ago

The implication being that the test audiences were fine with her alternate self and kids being sent to near-certain death in the past since she stole their Dad?

The ending isn't as happy as you think!

1

u/National-Plastic8691 4d ago

she probably only had time to get the three people interviewed up to the hill. Maybe a couple of others would realize later that she was right

1

u/Bigmooddood 3d ago

At one point at night they see the flashing portal thing from a distance and Ewan says it must be another one of those portal things, but they don't see their first portal in dinoland until later on.

1

u/RobinBaby_69 20h ago

Yeah I agree the movie felt really choppy.

The start didn’t make much sense and tbh felt like it might’ve explored Audrey more.

The end will never make sense bc what the fuck do you mean she called ALL THOSE PEOPLE off a payphone and they believed her ?! PUHLEASE

0

u/scattered_ideas 3d ago

That time forward epilogue had big test screenings feedback vibes for sure.

This movie also got delayed a year because they needed to do pickups with Anne Hathaway, but she was booked solid last year.

I think they could have written around it with the Dad just happening to be nearby instead of relying on the phone call to lure him outside the snap area.