Written and directed by Daniel André, “Running on Empty” is a 2024 romantic comedy-drama film that deals with the themes of mortality and fate. In a world where people can learn how many days they have left to live, the protagonist, Mort, decides to find out his own ‘life day count.’ This revelation prompts him to reflect on his life, achievements, and priorities as he faces the reality of his limited time. While Keir Gilchrist stars in the lead role of Mort, the cast also includes Lucy Hale, Francesca Eastwood, Monica Potter, Jim Gaffigan, Clara McGregor, Jay Pharoah, Dustin Milligan, and Leslie Stratton.
Spoilers Ahead
Running on Empty (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
“Running on Empty” (2024) revolves around Mort, who learns he will die soon. It turns his life into shambles and makes him evaluate his priorities. During his leftover life, he experiences love and heartbreak as he inches closer to death.
What happens in ‘Running on Empty’ (2024)?
“Running on Empty” (2024) follows Mort (Keir Gilchrist), who works for a funeral home run by his family. His uncle, Barry (Jim Gaffigan), stays in charge of the operations and guides Mort in caring for the dead. While tending to these responsibilities, Mort looks forward to his marriage with Nicole (Francesca Eastwood). Around this time, the couple learns about a process that can predict one’s ‘life day count,’ i.e., how many days they will live. Mort and Nicole register for the process. Eventually, they receive their results. While Nicole discovers she has a few decades to live, Mort has less than a year of life left.
After realizing Mort’s result, Nicole breaks their engagement and leaves him. Shortly after, she gets into a relationship with Nathaniel (Dylan Flashner). However, Mort cannot find the motivation to be with someone. Unlike him, Barry dates any woman who agrees to go out on a date with him. So, he compels Mort to do the same. Mort’s sister, Brittany (Clara McGregor), does not show him much sympathy. Brittany’s partner, Randall (Dustin Milligan), mocks Mort for his lack of enthusiasm toward life. Mort’s mother, Elaine (Monica Potter), mourns for Mort’s remaining life, especially in the wake of her husband, Rupert’s death.
Mort’s Life Before Death
Mort realizes he may not find any emotional help at home. So, he decides to join a dating service that allows people like him to meet others who will soon die. In their office, he bumps into their employee, Kate (Lucy Hale). She shoots a video of him sharing his expectations from their service and his partner. While speaking, Mort says people should not fear death, presumably because, at work, he is regularly surrounded by dead bodies. After he shares details about his job, Kate does too. She reveals she looked at this job as a temporary gig. But her actual dreams never materialized. So, she kept doing the same monotonous job for years.
Later that evening, Mort cleans his entire house and goes out for a drink. In the bar, he meets Rita (Leslie Stratton), who uses him as a shield from a creepy man. After the drinks, she invites him to her apartment. There, she reveals she is a sex worker and expects him to pay for their sex. It breaks Mort’s heart since he thought they had a genuine emotional connection. She feels terrible for him and allows him to offer her service for free. Suddenly, in the middle of their intercourse, she dies. Moments later, Simon (Rhys Coiro) knocks on the door and expects Mort to pay for the service. Once he realizes Rita is dead, he tortures Mort to get paid much more.
Mort’s Dating Life
Since Mort refuses to pay anything, Simon steals Mort’s car. However, Mort cannot seek help from the police because he technically solicited a sex worker. Since his car is gone, Mort uses Nicole’s bicycle to travel around. Around this time, Simon keeps pressuring him to pay more amount. Regardless, Mort goes on a few dates as arranged by the dating service. But it doesn’t work well for him. While one woman lectures him on death and existence, another steals his wallet. So, he filed a complaint with the dating service’s office. There, he meets Kate, who feels sorry for him. She asks him to join her for a breakfast.
Running on Empty (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
Does Mort fulfill his wish before his death?
After spending a day together, Kate and Mort start falling in love with each other. They set up another date. Back home, he receives a call from Nicole, who invites him to her villa. There, she tries to seduce him. He refuses her advances since he doesn’t want to break her new relationship. Soon after, Nathaniel shows up and forces Mort not to leave. Mort realizes that they want to have group sex. So, he leaves immediately. Later, he goes on a date with Kate and bonds with her. They watch a movie and sing karaoke. They keep growing closer with every passing day.
One day, Kate is at Mort’s house by herself. Suddenly, Simon shows up and threatens to kill her if Mort doesn’t pay him. When Mort returns home, he reveals how he got into this mess and why he doesn’t want to call the cops for help. He agrees to pay Simon any amount since he doesn’t want Simon to terrorize Kate or his family after his death. At work, he imagines himself having a dialogue about mortality with a dead body. Later at night, he goes to pay Simon the money. There, Simon threatens him to keep paying every week. Mort explains his situation, but Simon refuses to listen. So, they get into a fight that somehow leads to Simon’s death.
Despite Simon’s death, Mort returns home and plans a trip with Kate. However, the fate doesn’t seem to be on his side. At a near-empty airport, the only driving car somehow bumps into him. He collapses and dies as Kate stays by his side. So he cannot fulfill his wish to climb Mount Fuji. At the end of “Running on Empty,” we hear a part of Mort’s monologue for the dating service, where he shares his wisdom on life and death.
Running on Empty (2024) Movie Review:
“Running on Empty” follows funeral home worker Mort, who realizes he has only a year of life left. Shortly after this news, his fiancée breaks up with him. So, he begins to contemplate life, death, and mortality. As a film’s premise, all of this sounds lucrative. You have a dying man who has been regularly dealing with dead bodies. It makes death not seem like a threat but only an inseparable part of one’s life. So, the job leads him to embrace a near-stoic approach toward everything in his life. He begins to contemplate life’s priorities only after receiving the ‘life day count’ result.
Mort, a man who has given up on his life, meets Kate, a woman who has given up on her ambitions. They go on dates where they supposedly feel an emotional connection. However, neither the direction nor the performances can convince us of that. Keir Gilchrist’s performance doesn’t allow any window into Mort’s upheaval. He remains as uninteresting as his character. However, the issue isn’t just his performance but the pointless screenplay with nothing new to convey. The film introduces supporting characters and subplots but never uses them in Mort’s character development.
The Acting Performances
The film wastes the comedic potential of Jay Pharoah and Dustin Milligan on stereotypical characters that peddle jokes that are not remotely funny. On the other hand, Lucy Hale appears as a lively, cheerful woman who helps Mort see value in his life. In short, she plays a manic pixie dream girl. Her performance style works in “Which Brings Me to You” when paired with Nat Wolff, but it falls flat in this film. At times, her performance also feels laughably bad. Then, with its subplots, the film makes its pointlessness even more evident. They offer no fresh or relevant insight into Mort’s journey and lead to nowhere.
Instead of developing or resolving these narrative threads meaningfully, the film resorts to sentimentality to hide his utter shallowness. It tries to milk humor from different perspectives of looking at death. However, it confuses absurdity with profundity and turns itself into a muddled mess. Ultimately, it feels like an embarrassing crossover between films like “Bucket List” and almost any Hollywood romantic comedy that relies solely on genre cliches.
