Watching "The World's End" again, Simon Pegg's Gary King is one of the saddest protagonists in a comedy ever.

All three of the Three Flavors Cornetto Trilogy do a good job of mixing humor with pathos, but the character of Gary King probably is the best example because of how damn miserable he is. The character already is pathetic in how he's emotionally arrested at the age of 17, but then when you realize that he wants to reenact the Golden Mile as a precursor to suicide, that makes it all the more depressing. I mean, in the opening, after he finishes his support group story about the Golden Mile in his youth, when he ends it with the line "...I knew it would never get better. And you know what? It never did", his face has this grin that is pretty much the image for the phrase "dying on the inside." Even when he's funny (which is a lot of the time), there's this air of tragedy and wasted life that just hangs over the character like a thundercloud.

And even by the standards of "guy who peaked in high school", which has a long and rich tradition in film (I'm thinking of the drunk, beer-gutted Billy in "Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion" as a prime example), he's especially pathetic. Typically those characters look back on winning a big game or being homecoming king or a hot girl they dated in those days. Gary? He looks back on a PUB CRAWL as the highlight of his life. I don't know how much more depressing you can get if that is your great achievement that you treasure in your life.

An aside; I do love Simon Pegg's outfit he wears as Gary in this. If he ever got the job of the Doctor (not outlandish since both he and Nick Frost have appeared on "Doctor Who"), I could see this as his outfit.

Submitted February 22, 2021 at 07:18AM by gf120581 https://ift.tt/3sabOkA