*Editor’s note: there is discussion of the plot below, though the film is of the kind that it can’t really be spoiled if you have seen the trailer
The two reasons I watched Todd Berger’s It’s a Disaster are 1) David Cross is in it and I am a fan of his, and 2) the premise is brilliant. Here it is: 4 couples show up to Sunday Brunch. During their time together, the apocalypse ensues in the form of chemical attacks. They seal themselves in their house, and continue to deal with their screwed up personal lives while being pretty sure they’re gonna be dead in a few hours.
That’s it.
It’s a Disaster is a single scene talk fest. The action is all contained in the house and in the dialogue. Berger has brought together an adept ensemble cast and the movie is funny throughout, even to the last seconds. That is surprisingly rare for a comedy. Rapid dialogue in dysfunctional relationships like this is a clear holdover to the screwball comedies of yore, and the insertion of the farcical end of times enables a ridiculousness without which the film might been rendered unwatchable.
That said, I imagine that Berger thought the film to be a bit more black in its nature than it ended up being. The impending apocalypse brings only one or two scenes of actually dark material in what at heart is a really lighthearted film. Intentional or not, however, the film is better off for it.
So, the setting is brunch. These brunches have been ongoing for years and have seen the settled routines of the guests played out over and over. Tracy (Julia Styles) tends to date crazy men, and today brings her latest boyfriend Glenn (David Cross) to the group for the first time. Emma and Peter (Erinn Hayes and Blaise Miller) are a married couple planning to announce their divorce. Shane (Jeff Grace) is nuts for comic book collecting and a conspiracy theorist who has been engaged to Hedy (America Ferrera) for many, many years. Lexi and Buck have an open marriage that seems to make them the most secure couple in the group (Rachel Boston and Kevin M. Brennan).
Uninvited is the single neighbor (writer/director Todd Berger), who shortly after everyone arrives shows up in a hazmat suit to inform everyone that the world is falling apart. Attacks are unfolding around the nation, and everyone should prepare for the worst. There is also a fifth couple, notorious for arriving late. They will, unfortunately, show up after the news of the chemical attacks and die on the front porch.
It’s a Disaster places itself among the literal apocalypse, but it wisely remains, even until the last moments, focused on the tiny apocalypses of daily life. Shane is in search of a rare X-Men comic (the first appearance of Alpha Flight!) and he worries about when they should expect genetic mutation from nuclear fallout. His science-teacher wife sees him at last for his true self: a moron.
Likewise, Tracy sees Glen as a normal guy. Not another batshit crazy weirdo like the others she has brought to brunch. She lies and says they met at the grocery store; they really met online (“No shame in that,” Peter says, “that’s where we found our vet”). The new couple seems to truly hit it off, and the only real moments of emotional weight It’s a Disaster finds is when Tracy and Glenn discuss what might have been had the world kept spinning. What makes Berger’s movie feel new is his willingness to take even this little moment of comfort back from the audience.
The contrast between the global apocalypse and the personal ones makes It’s a Disaster very funny. It’s one-part screwball comedy, one-part farce, and one-part date movie. Without the literal apocalypse It’s a Disaster would have been an insufferable movie about white, upper-middle class hipsters and their chic-life problems. But with it we instead get to see that veneer unravel in a truly bonkers fashion.
There’s little motive to pretend when the world is ending. Be with the one you love, or don’t. Whatever.
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