George MacKay in The End (Felix Dickinson/Neon)

The world has ended, now what? Hypothetical apocalyptic futures tend to inspire cinematic spectacles. After all, such a premise lends itself to stunning visual effects, adrenaline-filled action sequences, and dramatic portrayals of humanity at its breaking point. However, this is a far cry from what you’ll find in The End, Joshua Oppenheimer’s first foray into fiction with an original script about a privileged family that survives the end of the world locked away in an underground bunker. Would you be willing to spend nearly two and a half hours watching the lives of hypocritical and delusional characters? There’s an extra challenge: What if it’s also a claustrophobic musical? Sounds like a hard sell, but if you take the plunge, you’ll be rewarded with carefully crafted performances, music, and ideas balancing conflicting emotions and thoughts.

Only a handful of characters inhabit this so-called “tiny paradise” within a salt mine. But even in this refuge, untouched by social crises or natural disasters (the reasons for the collapse are never clear), the old rules and hierarchies persist. Father (Michael Shannon) and Mother (Tilda Swinton) are the monarchs of this frail kingdom, surrounded by selected paintings in a luxurious home where anyone could believe nothing terrible has happened. Their son (George MacKay), though an adult, has spent his entire life in this sterile microcosm, which explains his childlike nature, constantly awed by a world he’s never known. They are not alone. The other four survivors are, to varying degrees, their vassals, even if they all dine at the same table: the butler (Tim McInnerny), the doctor (Lennie James), a blink-and-you’ll-miss maid (Danielle Ryan), and Friend (Bronagh Gallagher). At first, the latter seems to be there for sentimental reasons (Mother’s best friend), but it’s later revealed she was a sought-after chef—and the family loves her dishes, especially her cakes. She has also formed a deep bond with the son, acting as a confidant, unlike his parents.

Their lives follow a mechanical routine that shows no signs of fatigue. The opening song establishes a harmonic chorus of voices reciting, “Our future together is bright.” In the mornings, the son swims with the mother. In the afternoons, he meets with the father to write a heroic account of how the patriarch did what he could as the head of an energy company on a doomed planet. At least he cared, or so he keeps telling himself. At other times, Mother teaches the son and her friend how to rearrange the living room’s paintings, as if curating an art gallery. (The credits include an extensive list of renowned artworks.) The whole group participates in stressful emergency drills on what to do in case of an accident. Alone, the son fantasizes about open skies and dances on hills of salt, using them as his imagination’s playground. Everyone has learned to settle serenely for what they have. No conversation can ever be uncomfortable, no nostalgia indulged beyond reason, and there’s a tacit agreement that expressing dangerous thoughts or emotions would be unwise. This mitigates the pain of any loss and also silences any notion of guilt or awareness of their responsibility for the world’s collapse—a collapse they, as an ultra-privileged family, implicitly contributed to.

Don’t let the pretty melodies and harmless actions of its characters fool you, though. The End is as unsettling as The Zone of Interest. Oppenheimer introduces disruption once we understand how things work inside. The unexpected arrival of Girl (Moses Ingram), seeking help at this hidden refuge she stumbled upon, progressively threatens to unravel the carefully maintained facades. Girl has survived for years in the outside world with her parents, only to leave them behind to ensure her survival, and the young woman is neither prepared for nor trained in forgetting and indifference. In this musical universe, she has her songs too, but they are tinged with sorrow. Attempts to get rid of her—in a sequence that teeters on becoming violent but quickly softens—are thwarted when the son clearly shows romantic interest. Bad things will happen, but they never unfold as expected.

As a musical, The End is a challenging and extraordinary experiment that faithfully replicates the genre’s conventions (there’s a brief tap-dance number that will delight any enthusiast) but subverts them with an almost ghostly perversity. The soundtrack by Marius De Vries and songs composed by Joshua Schmidt, with lyrics by Oppenheimer, are exquisite and could easily fit in a Disney animated film, until you pay close attention to the context. In musicals, characters usually express their feelings and desires through songs. Here, instead, melodies are used as escapes that frustrate and stifle these emotions, barely revealing a sinister hint of the truth. Particularly extraordinary is Swinton’s solo, in which she sings about past conversations with her mother, whom she and her husband agreed not to let into the bunker. A stifled scream breaks the song’s climactic moment, only for her to reassemble a false joy before the rage and grief she harbors can surface.

In a crucial year for the musical genre’s reinvention, Oppenheimer’s offering demands not to be overlooked. Ever critical of escapism and the normalization of horror, the director expands on themes he explored in his earlier documentaries (The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence). The End emerges as an anti-fantasy, seductive yet daring, and a devastating dissection of evil as a mundane force of self-deception.