The End of Oak Street Review

In what some people (me) are calling the best dinosaur movie since Jurassic Park, The End of Oak Street takes a look at a family living in the suburbs in the 1980s whose life is upended when a wormhole takes them back in time to a prehistoric era. On the surface, the Platt family is happy. The father (Greg) works full time while doing deliveries to make a little extra money on the side. The mother (Denise, who is also played by the talented Anne Hathaway) is a closeted writer working on a book. Audrey is college aged and her younger brother Brian is thirteen. However, cracks run rampant below the family structure. Denise wishes Greg would spend more time with the family. Her book fantasizes about leaving her family and going to New York. Brian feels the tension and starts acting out by getting into fights and smoking cigarettes. The only one who isn’t really developed is Audrey though at the end of the movie she is proudly attending Cornell.

There are several warning signs of the impending event that sends them back in time. Their neighbor has a large pile of manure dumped on his lawn (when I say large I mean larger than he is) and a prehistoric plant begins to grow in another neighbor’s lawn which eventually turns into a complete jungle.When the wormhole does take them back in time, dinosaurs are not revealed right away: simply that the power and the water are both out. It isn’t until the next day the Platt family discovers they have been infiltrated by prehistoric creatures. 

I liked seeing all the different dinosaurs making themselves at home in a suburban setting (one of the ways it differs from Jurassic Park). There are velociraptors, prehistoric alligators, T-rexes, pterodactyls, and several other animals, usually hostile. My favorite was this giant ass snake which Justin and I looked up. It’s called a Titanoboa and I’ve never heard of it before. It can grow up to 50 feet long. In the movie it slithers through an upstairs window and makes its way through the house. It actually looked kind of comedic….until it opened its mouth revealing razor sharp teeth that almost took a bite out of Anne Hathaway’s back.

Of course the point of the movie is that initially the family grows more fractured in these trying times. It is revealed that Greg has lost his job several months ago and that is why he is doing all those deliveries. It is also revealed he has read Denise’s book and accuses her of wanting to leave him and the kids. Everyone is scared and crying and the dog (Starbuck) has run away. Brian spots him and leaves the house to get him. Audrey follows and once the parents realize they are gone, they get in the car to look for them. As they look for their two children, they find themselves leaning on each other emotionally and saving each other several times. And I will go no further than that becauseI don’t want to reveal too much.

This movie is moving, entertaining and a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon. The acting is great (the movie does not shy away from raw emotion and the actors give it their all), there are mercifully few cliches, and the ending wraps up all the loose ends (well most of them anyway). The characters are likeable, we are rooting for them and for all residents of Oak Street to end up back home.