At the end of the block in David Robert Mitchell’s “The End of Oak Street,” is a cul-de-sac with a telephone pole in the middle and wires radiating out like the cables of a big top. It’s a fitting touch for a breakneck, carnivalesque movie made with throwback showmanship.Summer movies, of course, are not known for lacking in circus-like mayhem. But much of the pastiche delight of the 1980s-set “The End of Oak Street,” a mid-August surprise, is how it absorbs an Amblin-style blockbuster spirit and conjures, without winking irony or belabored homage, a summer thrill ride seemingly designed for the drive-in.Mitchell’s breakthrough was the nifty 2014 horror “It Follows,” which he followed up with an admirably ambitious but shaggily self-indulgent Los Angeles neo noir, “Under the Silver Lake.” But any indulgences in “The End of Oak Street,” about a 1980s suburban family whose neighborhood is transported through time, are for the audience. “The End of Oak Street” is a bonkers blast.
It’s best going in not knowing anything about the movie’s twists, so tread carefully on the rest of this review. That’s not to say that an enormous amount of “The End of Oak Street” isn’t immediately familiar, starting with the central family.The Platts live in what looks like a San Fernando Valley neighborhood full of split levels and tidy little streets. Denise (Anne Hathaway) and Greg (Ewan McGregor) have two kids and a dog named Starbuck. Audrey (Maisy Stella) is a teenager and Brian (Christian Convery) is her younger brother.
