“The End Of Oak Street”: Hollywood Doesn’t Know How To Write Families in 2026
Mix dinosaurs, ’80s aesthetics, and Anne Hathaway, and you will get one of the most soporific experiences of the year. This is David Robert Mitchell’s The End Of Oak Street.
Am I the only one who is tired of the ’80s? Ever since 2015/2016, everything has had to be either set in the ’80s or aesthetically inspired by the ’80s. There are plenty of other decades you can take inspiration from. It’s been ten years; Stranger Things is already over. Can we please just move on?
Apparently, we can’t. So here it is, yet another film set in the ’80s and, to add another layer of originality, heavily inspired by Spielberg’s work but without the heart and charisma Spielberg’s movies used to have back then. And starring Anne Hathaway, because no film is complete without her in 2026.
Without further ado, let’s talk about the generic waste of time that is The End Of Oak Street.
What is The End Of Oak Street About?
In 1982, Denise and Greg live with their children Audrey and Brian and their dog Starbuck on idyllic Oak Street in the suburban town of Flowervale. Their marriage is going through a rough patch, and Denise is already contemplating a divorce.
One night, during a storm, a strange white light engulfs Oak Street. The family wakes up the next day with a terrifying realization: somehow their neighborhood is now surrounded by a prehistoric landscape, and dinosaurs start to emerge everywhere, ready to hunt down every human survivor.
The Most Unlikable Family
Hollywood has spent most of the past decade promoting selfishness and lack of responsibility in every single project. They got so deep into their own bullshit that they are now incapable of producing anything family-centered that does not feel superficial and dishonest. And of course, their moral compass is so broken that writing characters that are not assholes is not on the menu anymore.
Anne Hathaway plays Denise, a devoted wife and mother who secretly despises her life and dreams of leaving her husband and kids to pursue a writing career somewhere else. Because in 2020s Hollywood, no woman can possibly be happy being a mom. That’s oppression. Her family is keeping her from reaching greatness! And at this point I’m as happy to see Anne Hathaway in a film as I am to see Zendaya. Cast someone new, for God’s sake!
The dad, played by Ewan McGregor, is portrayed as a complete pushover. He is not particularly quick-witted, has no initiative, and always relies on his wife to solve problems around him. At the beginning of the film, we are shown that he has a side hustle delivering pizzas, which embarrasses his wife. It’s later revealed that he lost his job some time ago, and he has been working odd jobs and doing delivery gigs to support his family and avoid worrying his wife, who treats him with contempt all the time.
The kids are just there. We are told some random pieces of information about them, like who their crushes are or their hobbies, but none of that matters story-wise. For example, the oldest daughter is a fan of Carl Sagan. Because why not? She might as well be interested in make-up or video games for all the film cares. The little brother is just annoying.
As with Jurassic World: Rebirth last year, they are missing something important: the film is about a family that is in danger of being eaten by dinosaurs. But if I don’t care about the family, then I won’t care whether the dinosaurs eat them or not. And if, like in this case, the characters are deeply unlikable, I will become Team Dinosaur. I swear I wanted everybody to just die so the movie could be over sooner. No well-meaning human would be invested in this group’s survival, and that kills the thrill of the adventure.
Family-Centered Movies Are Gone
I see what the director was trying to recreate. The adventure centered on a family used to be a go-to idea for movies, and I honestly miss it. However, those types of projects only work if the characters, and not the action, are the heart of the adventure.
The formula is simple: We are introduced to a family and get to briefly know all of their members’ personalities and troubles, establishing this family’s dynamics and issues. Something unexpected happens, and the circumstances force all the family members to work together. As the plot moves forward, they start to see each other differently, be it by bonding over shared activities or having emotionally open conversations. The events end up healing their relationships and making them realize how much they need and love one another. In the end, they reach their goal because they stick together.
The End Of Oak Street does its best to replicate this old structure, but it turns out to be the exact opposite. Greg and Denise’s marriage is on the rocks, and no one in the family is doing great. They appear in Dinosaur Land, shenanigans happen, and then the script just declares the relationships are all fixed. There is no semblance of character development, no emotional arc or payoff. The center of the story is the dinosaurs; the characters are a narrative accessory.
Until movies recover the ability to write characters that are not just plot devices, they will continue to suck.
The Mixed Tone
The End Of Oak Street has an identity crisis and is incapable of finding a consistent tone. It attempts to be a family movie by the way it presents the character dynamics and by the lousy sense of humor, but every couple of minutes you get treated to some dinosaur gore. I’m sure the dinosaur enthusiasts will have more to say on the CGI aspect, but I was more concerned with how the script used the creatures.
At some point we have an eye-rolling joke about dinosaur sex, and five minutes later, one of the characters is brutally murdered in front of his family. What follows is supposed to be a moment of intense grief for said family, but it falls completely flat. The immediate thought, taking the atmosphere and most of the actors’ performances, is that it was not all that important. And actually it was not, because at the end the film takes it back and the dead character is no longer dead. More on this later.
This is complemented by another of modern cinema’s recurring villains: exposition dialogue. Instead of trying to figure out a way to survive, the characters have long conversations sharing theories on what is happening. They cannot explain the events, but that is okay, because neither can the film.
The Ending: Everything Was A Mystery + Girlboss Win
If you were curious about the explanation for the sudden appearance of dinosaurs, and you stayed to find that out… I’m about to disappoint you.
Halfway through the run time, the parents find a sort of portal that they deduce will take them back to their time. But the portal keeps disappearing and reappearing in different locations. During the final minutes, the mom manages to get all the kids to a new portal that happens to be on the roof of a house, and they make it back to the 80s. Once there, they realize that they have arrived on the same night the events took place, with enough time to call the dad and some of their neighbors from a public phone to warn them.
There’s a time jump, and we see scientists still have no idea what happened at Oak Street, and the zone is now restricted. Our favorite girlboss Denise became the hero who saved many of her neighbors. She also fulfilled her dream of becoming a writer, publishing a successful book based on her dinosaur adventures. So I’m guessing her husband didn’t have to work as a delivery guy anymore. The end.
Reception & Box Office
As expected, critics loved this. The audience, on the other hand, was less accommodating: I’ve seen people online claiming they loved the film, but also plenty acknowledging it was garbage.
The End Of Oak Street is now finishing its second weekend in theaters, with a worldwide box office of $85,966,000 against a budget of $85,000,000. Domestically, the film fell behind older releases such as The Odyssey, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and the new Insidious film this weekend. It does not sound like a success to me.
I’m just bored. Bored with watching the same borrowed aesthetics, the same faces, and the same messages shoehorned in every single film. Until someone remembers how to write a proper film with a proper family, I’m not interested.
