The movie works for 90 percent of its running time, depicting a family enduring terrible emotional hardship because of the isolated and peculiar behaviour of the father figure. For most of the film those hardships are well displayed, filled with dread and uncertainty over the main character's strange behaviour, triggered by his apocalyptic visions and dreams. The pace is almost too slow but it seems to be just enough to maintain that level of tension where you almost can't stand it and in the climactic bunker scene, it worked to a "T".
Unfortunately all the depth and intricacies of emotion that evolved over the course of the film are flushed down the toilet by an ending that betrays all of the emotional investment that we made into all the characters and their struggles. I've tried to work it out in my head that his wife is only "seeing" the storm as some sort of reflection of her desire to keep her family together and thus bypassing the treatment that he needs, but if that was the case then none of the other metaphors or even simple story elements (her not hearing the storm outside the bunker, no one else seeing or hearing anything he sees, the dream elements that were exclusive to him etc. etc.), none of those thing make sense then either, except as some elaborate trick where the meaning of these element isn't really established at all. It all just seems like some whim to pull off an "AHA" ending. Either that or its just a poorly executed ending.
The big problem with the ending is that the whole movie is about this man and woman trying to keep their family together, staying together through struggle (with his hallucinations and the subsequent chaos they cause), raising a child and then after the bunker scene it stops being about the family and turns into 2012.
The intricate struggles of dealing with mental illness, its effect on family, friends, and workplace are all wonderfully displayed and I don't think I'm alone in thinking that that was the intent of the first 7/8 of the film. To have it all become a "see you were wrong" thing is cheap and crappy.
Unfortunately all the depth and intricacies of emotion that evolved over the course of the film are flushed down the toilet by an ending that betrays all of the emotional investment that we made into all the characters and their struggles. I've tried to work it out in my head that his wife is only "seeing" the storm as some sort of reflection of her desire to keep her family together and thus bypassing the treatment that he needs, but if that was the case then none of the other metaphors or even simple story elements (her not hearing the storm outside the bunker, no one else seeing or hearing anything he sees, the dream elements that were exclusive to him etc. etc.), none of those thing make sense then either, except as some elaborate trick where the meaning of these element isn't really established at all. It all just seems like some whim to pull off an "AHA" ending. Either that or its just a poorly executed ending.
The big problem with the ending is that the whole movie is about this man and woman trying to keep their family together, staying together through struggle (with his hallucinations and the subsequent chaos they cause), raising a child and then after the bunker scene it stops being about the family and turns into 2012.
The intricate struggles of dealing with mental illness, its effect on family, friends, and workplace are all wonderfully displayed and I don't think I'm alone in thinking that that was the intent of the first 7/8 of the film. To have it all become a "see you were wrong" thing is cheap and crappy.