Every once in a while, I click on whatever title Netflix suggests to me first without really reading the synopsis or looking up the cast. The habit has led me to watching a lot of films I wouldn’t normally watch, most of them independent films. I first watched Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World a few years ago, and though I finished the film early in the evening, I lay awake the rest of the night with a lingering melancholy, haunted by the film’s final moments.

That’s what good films do, I guess.

The premise of the film is not a happy one: an asteroid is heading for Earth, and there’s no way to stop it. Everyone on Earth has three weeks to live, and it’s during those three weeks that Dodge (Steve Carrell) grows close to his neighbor Penny (Keira Knightley).

Although the plot is tragic, the movie thrives in its lighter moments, providing levity and almost a saccharine-sweet tinge to Dodge and Penny’s relationship. You almost forget how the film is going to end, and even though you know, you’re not prepared. It carefully treads the line between tragic and comic, and it does it so well that I find it hard to believe that this was writer Lorene Scafaria’s directorial debut.

 Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World is currently streaming on Netflix.