Let's start this new year with a film about the end of the world. The low-budget nuclear thriller Miracle Mile, directed by Steve De Jarnatt, has a semi-similar conceit to Kathryn Bigelow's multi-focal-point feature A House of Dynamite (2024): What happens in the immediacy of an impending nuclear attack on a city? Only here, the launch is discovered accidentally, via pay phone, by nebbish Trombonist Harry (Anthony Edwards). A love-stricken young man who may have stumbled on thermonuclear destruction while doing what he could to reconnect with his recent date, Julie (Mare Winningham). With time rapidly decreasing, Harry has an hour to track Julie down and reach safety before impending Armageddon.
I found myself watching a batch of end-of-the-world movies
in 2016 for some reason, and Miracle Mile was one of my favourites. It asks the
question: What if Martin Scorsese's After Hours (1986) were apocalyptic? It has
the same late-night vibe of Scorsese madcap, night owl farce, with Anthony
Edwards sharing the same hapless energy that surrounds Paul Dunne. What I find
most absorbing about Miracle Mile is the similarities to later apocalypse films
such as These Final Hours (2013) and Last Night (1998). They are outlandish
dramas and thrillers that hold acute examinations of the human condition. None
of the films is afraid to lean into the bleakness of impending doom. But what
also drives these films is often the feeling of love. Many of us will not
choose our final moments, but if it were possible, we would like to envision them with
the people we care about. And we would push every second to ensure that.
Starting with a meet-cute and ending up somewhere quite
startling, Miracle Mile plays out like an anxiety-inducing nightmare. Never
truly revealing until the end, whether what’s playing out is happening for real
or a lurid fabrication. The film’s tone teeters between black comedy and
paranoid thriller, but always preserves an entertaining balance. Some of
the film's wobblier dialogue and performances are quickly forgiven for the
film’s relentless push towards its climax. This is a film that doesn’t stop
once it gets started, and its cast gets whipped up into the film’s energy. From
a filmmaking craft perspective, it’s a shame Steve De Jarnatt never became a
more prolific filmmaker. Miracle Mile is shot with great care. Jarnatt stuck
to his guns and remained director, even when big studios wished to take the
film from him and make something more commercial. The outcome is something that
remains quite unique in execution. For a film so small, there’s a sense of
scale that modern films twice the budget would struggle with. Its visuals are
vivid and punchy, and the fact that Tangerine Dream are wrangled in to score
the movie is another bonus. With the group riffing on their Risky Business
score, the film is given a soundscape that feels both immediate and large-scale.
But Miracle Mile is intimacy at the edge of the world. At 88
minutes, it’s astonishing just how much the film packs into it. From one of the
tenderest first kisses made by a couple in a movie, to the film’s final
waterlogged moments of both Harry and Julie, bathed in doom-laden red light.
The film, for the most part, plays out in relative real time, so you feel for
this pair in the relatively brief moments they spend together. By the time the
film ends with a flash to white, there’s a realisation that time is too short.
Julie’s words ring so true: “I don’t want this!” She exclaims. If you fell for
these guys from that first kiss, neither do you.
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