When You Finish Saving the World movie review: An underwhelming directorial debut

The Sundance Film Festival has kicked off and I couldn’t be more excited to share my coverage right here on Hidden Remote. Today, I opened the festival with the directorial debut of Jesse Eisenberg’s When You Finish Saving the World.

Ziggy (Finn Wolfhard), a teenage boy who is hip to modern times, struggles to be raised by an elder generation couple. He likes to play his music loud and doesn’t want to be interrupted, while his Mom (Julianne Moore) wants to build a relationship closer to him. As she yearns for that relationship with her son, she attempts to find it in Kyle (Billy Bryk), a kid from a broken home living in the shelter she runs.

When You Finish Saving the World struggles with its message

There were bits and pieces in this film that really worked and there were others that felt like it was meandering around with no real message. I struggled to figure out what tone Eisenberg was going for throughout as it was all over the place. As a result, the movie felt more like a mess than anything else.

The good in this, though, was Finn Wolfhard. He has this entire “Mike from Stranger Things” vibe going for him and something I thought would be hard for him to shake off. We even saw pieces of that in Ghostbusters Afterlife. However, Wolfhard was fantastic in this. Although his character Ziggy was somewhat annoying, audiences can relate to his character and Wolfhard did a great job of attaching us to Ziggy.

Another highlight was the score from composer Emile Mosseri. Even through the moments that felt like it was all over the place, Mosseri’s score felt like the glue that held it together. I could listen to the score on repeat over and over again.

Overall, it was a slightly underwhelming directorial debut by Jesse Eisenberg, which kind of sucks as this was one of my most anticipated films of the festival.

When You Finish Saving the World will be released in theaters by A24 sometime in 2022.