Exes In Quarantine Provide Laughs and COVID Realness with The End of Us

I don’t think anyone could have ever predicted the manner in which our lives would shift a year ago.  Who would’ve ever thought getting a hug, traveling or just going out for a cup of coffee would be a challenge? Could you imagine being in a relationship that isn’t working out only to have it coupled with a global pandemic making you quarantine with each other?  Under the best circumstances, this would be challenging, but to have your lives turned upside down on the verge of your 30th birthday is a dramedy in the making.

The End of Us serves as a double entendre for the end of the world as we knew it B.C. (Before Covid) and the final threads of a relationship barely holding together.  Leah (Ali Vingiano) has a great corporate job and Nick (Ben Coleman) is in between careers (and has been for quite some time) when Los Angeles literally shuts down overnight thrusting everyone into masks, increased streaming at home, online dating and the fear of contracting a virus that no one knew how to contain or thwart.

Directed, Written, Edited and Shot by Steven Kanter and Henry Loevner find a very savvy, yet comical way to portray how we all on some level feel about the last year, watching jobs disappear or getting furloughed,  ZOOM fatigue, stimulus checks and health care issues due to plans like Obamacare being cut and pre-existing conditions being left out to dry.

Coleman and Vingiano are hilarious.  Especially, scenes where out-of-work actor Nick tries to get an apartment for $550, watching him do a really bad self tape (which has become the norm for all too many actors during the pandemic), hearing him repeat that mad lies of Trump and referring to him as Doctor, when folks start looking real good when your options are slim to none or when you get yelled at for not wearing a mask.

Kanter and Loevner, capture all the humor, pain, confusion and uncertainty a relationship on the skids can encompass…especially during a global pandemic. But, The End of Us will remind us how at the end of the day love and a great sense of humor can make even the darkest of times feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel.