Absolutely Anything (2015) Full Recap

In 1972, a rocket blasts off from Earth carrying a small space probe. Its mission is to fly out past every planet and keep going into deep space to find intelligent life out there. And on the probe, there's a little plaque with a picture of a man and a woman and a map that shows exactly where to find us. Down here, Neil Clark is the star of a fancy book launch where a beautiful TV presenter named Catherine is asking him how he understands the human soul.

So, well, Neil talks about his brilliant novel until a pack of dogs bursts into the hall and knocks him flat. Then he wakes up. It was all a dream. The doorbell is ringing and it's his neighbor Fiona complaining that his dog was barking. Pets aren't allowed in the building. Neil tells her he's a guide dog.

She points out that Neil isn't blind. The dog is Dennis. And on the way out with him, Neil runs into Catherine, who lives downstairs. He tells her he just dreamed she was giving him an award for his novel. She asks if he's actually finished it yet. Almost. He says he's just removed all the chapters.

In real life, Neil is a teacher at a school. His friend Rey, who teaches there, too, asks when he's going to make his move on the woman downstairs. Neil says he's got Dennis, and he doesn't want to complicate his life. Meanwhile, far out in space, the little probe has finally been found by a council of very strange aliens.

They call themselves superior beings, and their leader announces a destruction order on the planet Earth. One of them points out that the Earthlings deserve a chance to prove themselves first. If they can, they get to join the galactic community. If they can't, they'll be wiped out.

Back in London, Catherine works on a TV book show and she's not happy. The presenter never reads the books and the producer tells Catherine that the show isn't really about books at all. It's about scandal and gossip and tearing authors apart. So, when Neil bumps into her in the supermarket and sees her looking miserable, he tries to cheer her up with some silly jokes about pickles and herring.

Up in space, the aliens begin their test. They'll pick one Earthling at random and give him the power that all superior beings have, the power to do absolutely anything. If he uses it for good, Earth is welcomed into the galaxy. If he uses it for evil, Earth gets eliminated. The machine spins and the Earthling it picks is Neil.

He has 10 days. Neil doesn't feel a thing. The only thing that happens to him that morning is a car knocking him off his bike. At a cafe, Catherine tells her friend Rosie about her ex, an American officer who turned out to be obsessive, possessive, and jealous. Rosie asks about the nice guy upstairs.

Catherine admits he's kind, and likable at school. The headmaster is furious. It's the 12th time Neil has been late this month. He calls him idle, irresponsible, and feckless, and says that if he could replace him, he would. At lunch, Rey asks a funny question. Neil jokes that he'd have alien spaceships destroy class 10C and he waves his hand.

And a moment later, there's a huge explosion across the school. Up in space, one of the aliens did it just for practice, and the others tell him off because the test hasn't even really started. That night, the news says the blast at the school killed 38 pupils. Neil can't believe it.

He laughs and tells Dennis it couldn't have been him. If he really could make things happen, he'd just say, "Dog mess, clean yourself up." And it does. Neil starts testing it. He tells a bottle to go back to the shop and exchange itself, and it flies out the door and down the street.

He chases it all the way to the closed shop and ends up in trouble with a police officer. Then he remembers the school. He waves his hand and says, "Let everyone who died be alive again." But he forgot to be specific. And all over the city, everyone who has ever died starts coming back.

So he fixes it fast. Only the kids of 10 C completely unheard. And then let the explosion never have happened. And suddenly he's back at lunch with Rey asking the same question again. Neil says he just dreamed he could do anything. And Rey says that if he could, he'd make a certain teacher worship the ground he walked on.

At the TV station, Catherine's producer tells her she could get her own office with a view if she plays her cards right. Then her ex Grant shows up in his uniform. He's flown all the way from America to win her back. Catherine tells him she doesn't even like him and asks him to leave her alone.

Grant warns her that he knows the people who control the BBC. Neil decides to put his gift to use. He makes 10 C a model class, kind, considerate, and eager to learn, and the kids are thrilled to read a whole chapter. He makes the headmaster nice to him, and the headmaster suddenly can't stop praising him.

And as a favor to his friend, he makes Pringle worship Rey. Then Neil gets carried away. He says, "Me be president of the United States." And the next second, Secret Service agents drag him into a car and start reading him briefings on every crisis in the world. That's not what he wants either.

Neil finally tells Ry the truth. And to prove it, he makes the classroom skeleton talk and then fills the whole room with flowers. Ray's mind starts racing. They could own every racehorse in the world. They could have money, fame, anything. Meanwhile, Grant is following Catherine down the street in a sports car, offering her a ride.

He's rented a luxury apartment for the two of them, and he hands her the key. She tells him to go home, and Miss Pringle has started building shrines to Rey all over the school. Up in space, the aliens have a problem. Their galactic power has failed. So, the test is suspended until they can fix it.

Neil has no powers at all for a while, and he has no idea. So that night, Neil makes the one wish he's been afraid to make. He wishes for Catherine to be madly in love with him. And a few seconds later, Catherine is at his door. But remember, the power was off. Nothing he wished came true tonight.

She came because she wanted to. Then the alien's power comes back on. The next morning, Neil is on top of the world. He makes the London weather sunny like Los Angeles. His clothes put themselves on him and he makes his own breakfast appear out of nowhere. But then he looks at Dennis and he gets curious.

He makes Dennis able to talk and the first word out of Dennis's mouth is biscuits. It turns out that's all Dennis can think about. Then Neil makes him a rational thinking creature and Dennis tells him something sweet. He loves his master so much and his whole world falls apart whenever Neil is cross with him.

Then Neil realizes something that makes him feel sick. He thinks he forced Catherine to come to him. And right then, Catherine comes to talk about last night. She says she likes him. But Dennis won't stop shouting embarrassing things from the next room. Neil panics and tells her it's his brother, a plumber, and Catherine leaves furious, thinking she's fallen for a creep.

Then Ry comes running. Miss Pringle has gone too far. She started a whole religion around him with a website and followers. Neil says he can't do anything about it right now. And when Rey doesn't believe he still has the powers, Neil turns him into a duck and then a sausage just to prove it.

The aliens are not impressed. It's clear to them that Neil has no idea how to do any good at all. That evening, Catherine comes home and finds Grant inside her flat. He broke in. She tells him to get out of her life and she runs upstairs to Neil who offers to make her dinner and keep her away from Grant.

Neil makes Dennis promise to act like a perfectly ordinary dog and Dennis tries his best. At dinner, Catherine tastes Neil's soup and says it's the most amazing thing she's ever had. That's because he wished for it to be, Neil says, and he tells her everything. The powers, the talking dog.

Catherine looks at him like he's lost his mind and gently suggests he might need help. Then Grant bursts in with a gun, calling himself her fiance. Neil uses his powers on him. He makes himself bulletproof, and Grant ends up stuck to the ceiling, flattened against the wall and head first in a plant pot.

Then Neil gives him a million dollars and makes it vanish again. But in the middle of it all, Neil makes a big mistake. He tells Grant exactly how the power works. All he has to do is wave his hand. Grant doesn't forget. He kidnaps Neil and Dennis and takes them to his fancy apartment, ties Neil to a chair, and holds a gun to Dennis.

Neil has to read out Grant's list of wishes and wave his hand or the dog gets it, so Grant's wishes come true one by one. Englishmen get big ears and webbed feet. British police get pink uniforms. Catherine can't find Neil anywhere, so she teams up with Ry, who's busy running from Miss Pringle's followers.

They want him to prove he's immortal by rising from the dead. Meanwhile, Grant gets himself a uniform covered in medals and a pile of gold bars. Catherine and Ry finally track them down. Then, Grant skips to his last wish. Catherine is to fall madly in love with him. Catherine begs Neil not to do it.

Dennis begs Neil not to let him die, and Neil waves his hand. Then Neil sets Dennis free and turns Grant into a little corgi. Then he cleans up the mess. He makes Catherine her normal self again, cancels every one of Grant's wishes, and makes Miss Pringle and her followers forget all about Rey.

Rey isn't exactly grateful. Up in space, the aliens decide that Neil has no concept of good or evil. The next day, Neil tries to talk to Catherine. He apologizes and tells her he loves her. But she asks him a question he can't answer. How could any woman love a man who can make her do whatever he wants any second, every day, forever.

She'll never know if her feelings are her own. She tells him she could never love him. Neil is miserable. He tells Dennis it's all his fault because he only thought about himself. With these powers, he could have solved every problem in the world. So, he does it. He ends world hunger, gives everyone a dreamhouse, ends war, and reverses global warming.

And it all goes horribly wrong. Food grows so fast that people in China get so heavy. A group of school children knocks down part of the Great Wall. Houses cover the whole Sahara. Countries start declaring war for no reason at all. And the whole planet freezes into a giant snowball.

Absolutely Anything (2015) Ending Explained

It's not so easy trying to do good, is it? So Neil puts everything back the way it was. Absolute power doesn't corrupt, Neil decides. He walks onto a bridge over the river, climbs up on the railing, and tells Dennis to tell Catherine he loves her, but Dennis jumps in first to save him and then remembers he can't swim.

So Neil dives in after him and carries him out of the river. Dennis asks if he loves him. Of course, he does. Neil says he just doesn't love himself. Up in space, the aliens are done. They're angry that he tried to make things better for people. To them, that's weakness. So, they decide to destroy the Earth anyway.

Prime the destruction generator. Neil and Dennis sit on a park bench. Neil can't give up the powers, so Dennis has an idea. Give them to me, he says. So, Neil passes the powers to Dennis. And Dennis uses them just once. He asks for the source of his power to be destroyed forever. and the alien ship blows up into a million pieces.

Back home, Neil tells his huge stack of marking to finish itself. Nothing happens. The powers are gone. When he sees Catherine, he shows her. He waves his hand and nothing happens. He got rid of the powers. She tells him she's impressed. He asks her to dinner sometime. Maybe, she says.

And then they settle on tonight. And in the hallway, Dennis has a new friend, a small corgi who used to be Grant. Grant begs Dennis to turn him back. Dennis can't and says he likes him as he is. Nobody's perfect.