“Nuked” Braces for an Impact
What if you knew the end of the world was coming? With the limited time you have left on earth, what would you choose to do? It’s a question that has likely crossed your mind once or twice. When the time does come, however, there’s simply no telling what you’ll do or what you’ll have time to do. Director and co-writer Deena Kashper takes these ruminations a step further in her stoner dinner party comedy Nuked.
Jack (Justin Bartha) and Gill (Anna Camp) are throwing a combined 40th birthday party. They’ve been married for years and have started to try for a child. The highs and lows of their relationship have become fodder for Gill’s popular podcast, but it’s clear that Jack holds some resentment for how public she makes their relationship. They aren’t the only couple with issues at the party. Jack and Gill have invited their longtime friends and partners to celebrate: new parents Penelope (Lucy Punch) and Sam (George Young), never-married Ishaan (Maulik Pancholy) and Damian (Stephen Guarino), and old flames Mo (Tawny Newsome) and Logan (Ignacio Serricchio). When guests arrive, Jack takes everyone’s phones and locks them away. Penelope, unable to cope with leaving her child for the first time, secretly uses her phone, only to get an alert that a missile is heading toward California.
It’s no surprise that Nuked was inspired by the 2018 incident in Hawaii, when residents received a similar alert, telling them they had 38 minutes until impact. We all know that no missile hit and that some employee merely pressed the wrong button, but for that period of time, it was the end as far as those people knew. It’s the same for the characters in Nuked. Now is also a good time to mention that the food at the party is all cannabis-infused. Not only do these partygoers believe it’s the end of their world, they’re also high out of their minds. Paranoia ramps up as the threat of death looms, but an inherent silliness runs through even the deepest of fears.
Courtesy of Quiver
As much as weed is a part of the film’s central conceit, Nuked is most interesting when it allows the characters in the various relationships to parse through what troubles them. Do Jack and Gill really agree on having a child? Is there still love between Penelope and Sam? Do Ishaan and Damian have the perfect relationship they thought they had? Is the end of the world the best time for old flames to reconnect? Each of these interpersonal sources of tension are interesting in their own right, but Nuked seems wary of letting the film lose its silliness in favor of addressing the real issues that plague relationships. Each time these conversations are building toward a conclusion, the film’s focus wanders before we get there. Nuked has its fair share of montages in favor of emotional growth for its characters and creates the impression that the threat of the end of the world didn’t change them all that much.
And maybe that was Nuked’s intention all along. That something as big as a nuclear missile hurtling toward you doesn’t have the ability to truly change who you are. That even when the end is near, we’re all going to be the same people we always have been. Whether that be selfish, kind, or what have you, it’s not the earth-shattering events that shape us. Rather, it’s the years and years of the small things shaping us into the people we are. Nuked is a stoner flick that’s lighter on the laughs and heavy on the weed, with an unexpected heart beneath the haze.
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