There are but a few weeks😼 left before Earth is🌼 destroyed by an asteroid.

Some people are throwing themselves off buildings; others are ticking off bucket lists or shagging as many strange𝐆rs as they🌳 can.

Insurance salesman Dodge (Steve Carell), meanwhile,⛄ is still turning up at the office, sad, lonely and depressed.

Do🔯dge’s recent split from his wife left him a wreck long before the end of the world came along.

Discovering 🌳a letter from his high-school sweetheart, he sets off on a road trip in hopes of a reunion – accompanied by newly single neighbour Penny (Keira Knightley)&h♉ellip;

As intimate a vision of the apocalypse as Ewan McGregor-Eva Gr𒉰een indie , Lorene S💦cafaria’s directorial debut focuses on Dodge and Penny’s evolving bond.

Half Bill Murray in , half his own lovable loser fr𒆙om , Carell fits the hangdog-hero mould perfectly. Alas, it’s less easy to accept Knightley as a penniless, free-spirited bohemian.

Her dramatic scenes might be some of the most moving in the film, but elsewhere she tries too hard to hide the pout. Tonally, Seeking A Friend is bittersweet – in that order.

As you might expect from the woman who penned t♈he cutsey indie romance , the jet-black satire (causal heroin use at middle-aged dinner parties; CEO jobs being handed to whomever wants them), starts turning soppy somewhere around the midpoint.

The whole end-of-the-world thing is pushed further and further into the background, and with it most of the film’s early promise as an edgy dark come♒dy.

Still, as unashamed sentimentality goes, it’s handled sensitively; you should expect to shed a few tears by the time the countdown hits zero – but not for the sake of the human raꦯce.