‘The End of Oak Street’ Movie Review: Smart, Funny, and Built to Entertain

Synopsis: The Platt family bands together to navigate their new surroundings after a cosmic event transports their suburban neighbourhood to someplace unknown.
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Stars: Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor

There are some movies where you can tell everyone involved knew exactly what kind of movie they were making. The End of Oak Street is one of those movies.

This isn’t about reinventing cinema. It isn’t trying to win you over with a complicated mythology or spend half its runtime explaining the science behind what is happening. It wants to introduce us to a family, drop them into an absolutely insane situation and take the audience on one heck of a ride.

Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, The End of Oak Street takes place in 1982 and centres around the Platt family. Denise (Anne Hathaway) is an aspiring novelist living with her husband Greg (Ewan McGregor) and their children Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convery). From the outside, they appear to be another ordinary suburban family. Behind closed doors, things aren’t going nearly as well. Denise is contemplating divorce, while Greg is hiding the fact that he has lost his job.

Those problems suddenly become significantly less important when some very strange things start happening around Oak Street. A mysterious plant appears that shouldn’t exist in 1982. Solar activity is increasing. Then a strange white light engulfs the neighbourhood.

When the family wakes up the next morning, Oak Street isn’t exactly where they left it.

The entire neighbourhood has somehow been transported millions of years into the past. And yes, that means dinosaurs. Lots and lots of dinosaurs.

What follows is essentially a suburban survival movie as the Platts attempt to stay alive, find one another and figure out if there is any possible way home. The movie smartly takes the problems that already existed within this family and places them against an absolutely ridiculous backdrop. It’s hard to continue worrying about your marriage when an Allosaurus might be coming around the corner.

At the centre of everything is Anne Hathaway, who gives a powerful performance as Denise.

What a year Hathaway is having.

In 2026 alone, we have seen her return as Andy Sachs in The Devil Wears Prada 2, play Penelope in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, star in Mother Mary and now battle prehistoric creatures in The End of Oak Street. Verity is still to come. That’s an incredible collection of projects in one calendar year, but what’s impressive is how different the roles are.

Denise could have easily become the generic “mom protecting her kids” character, but Hathaway gives her considerably more depth. Before the dinosaurs even arrive, we understand that this woman is unhappy and questioning what she wants from life. Once everything goes sideways, Hathaway convincingly transforms Denise into the emotional and physical centre of the movie.

Ewan McGregor also understands the assignment as Greg. So do Stella and Convery. In fact, that’s one of the biggest reasons the movie works: everyone commits. Nobody acts like they’re above a movie about a suburban neighbourhood being transported to the age of dinosaurs. The cast takes the danger seriously, which allows the audience to become invested in it.

Mitchell, who previously directed It Follows, also knows how to build tension. There are some great jump scares throughout the film, and several genuinely suspenseful sequences where you know something is lurking nearby but aren’t quite sure when it’s going to appear. And when it does…Yeah, I jumped.

More importantly, the scares are fun. The End of Oak Street understands the difference between being scary and being miserable. This is a summer movie. It’s supposed to have audiences clutching their armrests one minute and smiling the next.

The dinosaur effects also deliver. Industrial Light & Magic, which has some experience in this department thanks to the Jurassic Park franchise, handled the creatures, and the film benefits greatly from making them feel dangerous rather than simply using them as visual spectacle.

At 99 minutes, the movie also doesn’t overstay its welcome. It establishes the characters, unleashes the chaos and keeps moving.

Sometimes that’s exactly what you want from a summer movie.

This is a movie about Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor trying to keep their family together while dinosaurs terrorize their suburban neighbourhood. If that sentence sounds entertaining to you, there’s a very good chance you’re going to have fun. I certainly did.

The End of Oak Street has thrills, some terrific jump scares, an excellent lead performance from Hathaway and a cast that completely understands what kind of movie they’re in. It’s exciting, occasionally emotional and, most importantly, very enjoyable.

In a summer filled with massive blockbusters, sometimes you just want a movie that knows how to entertain an audience.

The End of Oak Street absolutely does.

Grade: A-