Three friends move home from college, and a fourth agrees to pick them up and drive them somewhere. Where doesn’t matter: They’re not getting there anyway. Instead, they end up on a rural road with no lights, no signs, and no eventual turn their GPS tells them to take. So the driver flips a U-turn and goes back the way they came. Then they run into an impenetrable forest where the entrance should be. Behind them is road. Nothing but road.

Premiering at 2025’s South By Southwest Film Festival, It Ends, from writer-director Alex Ullom, is a movie a shade before its time. A year and change went by for this low-budget indie to see theatrical release, and it has a new development in popular storytelling to thank: liminal cinema. This summer’s Exit 8 and Backrooms have shown profitability in the endless and the repetitive. Now Neon joins the chat with It Ends and the road to nowhere.

And while the road—what it is or what it’s meant to symbolize—is the talking point of It Ends, it’s the characters that make the movie work. The three friends leaving college are James (Phinehas Yoon), Day (Akira Jackson), and Fisher (Noah Toth). What relationship they have isn’t fully defined, nor are their personalities beyond James, the realist-slash-pessimist of the bunch, a man who has already mapped out his successful but miserable future, complete with a dead-end middle-management job and a decent marriage to his second choice in a suburban town somewhere. The fourth friend, Tyler (Mitchell Cole), either avoided college or dropped out and is now working HVAC. His job ain’t grand, but he enjoys it. And he seems to have a better grasp on the situation, both the existential quandary before him and the world of flux he left behind.

Everyone deals with the infinite in their own way. Day and Fisher find that a structured routine and a daily scream fest stave off the insanity—a blend of resignation and acceptance—while Tyler, the scientific one, tries rationality and study. He’s the man of action, the one who refused to play by any rules beyond his own. That might explain why college didn’t fit with him. And then there’s James. He’ll follow the prescribed path to the end even if there isn’t one. He reminds me of Neon Genesis Evangelion’s Shinji Ikari, a child who plays the cello only because someone told him to start and no one told him to stop.

The actors of It Ends don’t get many notes to hit, but they play them well. Likewise, cinematographers Evan Draper and Jazleana Jones do a lot with a little, considering they have only four faces, one Jeep Cherokee, and a whole lot of trees to paint this canvas.

But back to the road: What is it and what does it mean? I’m not sure if the road in It Ends stands in for something other than what it practically is, but it is engaging to watch Tyler, James, Day, and Fisher all come to terms with it in their own way. You might see yourself in these possible executions, or you might think of another. Ullom’s framework creates enough space for both his characters and his audience. That’s more than most movies can boast.

It Ends (2025)
Written and directed by Alex Ullom
Produced by Evan Barber, Carrie Carusone
Starring: Phinehas Yoon, Mitchell Cole, Akira Jackson, Noah Toth
Neon, Rated R, Running time 89 minutes, Premiered March 7, 2025 at the South by Southwest Film Festival

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