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So many of Steve Carell's big-screen movie roles require him to play some variation on the sad-sack mope. It's refreshing, then, that Lorene Scafaria's end-of-the-world road comedy Seeking a Friend for the End of the World finally gives him something real to mope about. It's not just a midlife crisis. It's not just the dissolution of his marriage. It's the apocalypse.

Carell stars as Dodge, whose wife (Carell's real wife Nancy Walls) runs out on him when the news hits that a final attempt at preventing an asteroid from colliding with Earth has failed and that everyone on the planet has only a few weeks left before everything is obliterated.

Dodge's initial reaction is to just keep acting as if it's business as usual: he continues going to work as an insurance salesman. His housecleaner still comes by once a week, despite his efforts to dissuade her. Dodge's life has already been in such a state of hollow repetition that even the end of the world can't shake him from his funk.

It's not until he strikes up a conversation with Penny (Keira Knightley), his quirky downstairs neighbor, that Dodge starts to believe he has any reason left to live. It seems his first girlfriend -- the "one that got away" -- wrote him a letter months back, and with Dodge being newly single (and the world ending), the opportunity has finally presented itself for them to reconnect. Dodge and Penny strike out on the road together to track down his lost love and to get her home to see her family in England, encountering every type of person and reaction to armageddon imaginable.

It's in these survivor encounters that the movie finds many of its laughs -- and, yes, for a movie about the End of Days, Seeking a Friend is very funny.

First-time director Scafaria is very clever in exploring all kinds of different responses. One man hires a hitman to take him out. Another just jumps from a building. A group of Dodge's friends throw a party and do all the things they never had a chance to do, whether it's sleeping with new partners or trying heroin for the first time. A big part of the reason these scenes are so funny is because Scafaria has populated many of the supporting roles with comedians. Rob Huebel plays one of Carell's co-workers (though most of his role appears to have been cut out). Amy Schumer is a party guest. Rob Corddry is the guy throwing the party, basically playing the typical Rob Corddry a-hole character. Patton Oswalt practically steals the entire movie as a drunk guest who delivers a monologue about how the news of the world ending has increased the dating pool. T.J. Miller pops up in a very funny sequence as a waiter at Friendly's, a T.G.I. Fridays-style restaurant whose staff has decided to remain open, mostly so they can turn it into a non-stop orgy. Practically every scene in the movie features a guest star whose appearance is welcome and delightful. The supporting cast also helps hold up the two leads, who are sweet but familiar. Carell, in particular, is fine in the lead, even though he's not doing anything that he hasn't done on film several times before.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World isn't really an out-and-out comedy, though. The moments that are funny are so because Scafaria has wisely chosen to play the absurdity of the scenario, but she doesn't shy away from the sadness, either. It can't really be all laughs when all life is going to disappear. Scafaria doesn't back away from the implications of the story she has chosen to tell, but, at the same time, the movie isn't entirely about its 'end of the world' plot hook. The end of the world acts as a metaphor -- a catalyst to remind the audience just how little time we have with our families, with our friends, with the ones we love. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is a bittersweet reminder that our time together is far too short. It's even shorter when an asteroid is coming.

• Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is rated R for language including sexual references, some drug use and brief violence.
• Release Date: 6/22/12
• Running Time: 101 minutes
• Studio: Focus Features