This British set, British produced film is yet another based on a popular piece of Young Adult literature, though dating back a decade to the terse post 9.11 period when all comfortable certainties seemed gone and death could strike right at our very doorsteps once again.
The storyline features troubled (of course) teen Elizabeth (Saoirse Ronan), a New York girl who is a neurotic, living by rules gleaned from magazines and TV, terrified of germs and infection, and convinced she is hexed, since her mother died giving birth to her. On the eve of an unspecified international crisis, her anxious father sends her to the UK, from where her mother hailed, and the isolated country farm of her maternal aunt Penn (Anna Chancellor) an analyst for the security services and about to ship out to Geneva to help co-ordinate the upcoming war effort, leaving her with her cousins: 14 yr old Isaac (Tom Holland), 7 yr old Piper (Harley Bird) and handsome 16 yr old Edmond (George Mackay). Their rustic idyll is cut dramatically short when a nuclear bomb is dropped on London (Eerily heard as a distant thud followed by a strong wind and an ash snowfall) and martial law is declared. During this period, Elizabeth learns to love her English roots, her cousins, and especially Edmond, who despite being her 1st cousin engages in a passionate first love affair that ends up defining them both (Let's hope they never decide to have children!) But Britain itself has been invaded by an unidentified enemy force (probably the Russians given the uniforms and Slavic looks) and paradise is soon lost. Evacuated by the military, Edmond and Isaac are drafted as army cadets while Elizabeth and Piper are fostered by a couple while they work on a nearby food production farm. But as the Russians (maybe?) come knocking, Elizabeth eschews further military help and takes Piper with her on a long night of the soul voyage to try and find the others, especially Edmond, whom she sees in her dreams and visions (it is implied early on the two have a psychic link) through the occupied countryside, living off the land and witnessing the many horrors of war (rape, mass graves, shot down civilian airliners full of dead passengers,etc) and testing their resolve to the full. Will she find her new soul mate, and what life will they manage to make for themselves after all the horror?
The film, directed by veteran Kevin McDonald, looks great and has a nice sense of pastoral elegance about it, with the beautiful British countryside being the backdrop to both love and death, joy and pain, beauty and horror. The cast are all good, especially the star of the show Ronan, who has been carving a niche for herself as special but tormented teens yearning to reach out and find a common humanity. Initially a neurotic bitch, with her disco haircut and make up making her look eerily like a young Sharon Stone, she charts the inevitable growth of her character well, but alas is poorly served by the script, which requires so little of her given the circumstances. A lot is implied through the photography, imagery, music and strange visions that Ronan herself is required to do little actual "acting" herself. Same goes for the talented George Mackay, who is meant to embody an ideal of love and masculinity (he appears as Adam himself in several visions) but is not asked to do much to prove it apart from bring out the nice side of his own cousin. The younger kids Holland and Bird are also very likable without being annoying, a tough act especially for Bird who is meant to be a typically chirpy happy gay 7 yr old in the middle of Hell itself but naturally unaware of any of it.
The film has a nice poetry and lyricism to it, and doesn't pull its punches in depicting the horrors of war and occupation (it has a 15 certificate in the UK, equivalent to R in the States) yet it does not quite have the impact desired. The main problem is that it's all been seen and done before so many times, in the old post nuclear dramas ("Survivors", "The Day After", etc) in the original "Red Dawn", "Cold Mountain" and others, and bleak post-apocalyptic dramas like "The Road" "A Boy and his dog" "War of the Worlds" (2005) and of course "28 days later", which this film most obviously resembles. There isn't anything fresh or original here, just more bliss before the storm, the loss of paradise, the long hard trek and paradise (sort of) regained. It also doesn't help that the central romance between Elizabeth and Edmond is hardly of the burning eternal passion kind (maybe it was in the book, or maybe it's all just a crutch that Elizabeth has largely created for herself), further compounded by the inevitable inescapable fact that they are first blood cousins who share a set of grandparents! Maybe it would have been OK in Jane Austen's time, but it's pretty disturbing now.
A solid film, hard, tough, well-directed and acted, yet lacking drive, motivation, passion, or indeed anything really fresh to say about the situation it is depicting, it will both engage and yet also leave you wanting more.
The storyline features troubled (of course) teen Elizabeth (Saoirse Ronan), a New York girl who is a neurotic, living by rules gleaned from magazines and TV, terrified of germs and infection, and convinced she is hexed, since her mother died giving birth to her. On the eve of an unspecified international crisis, her anxious father sends her to the UK, from where her mother hailed, and the isolated country farm of her maternal aunt Penn (Anna Chancellor) an analyst for the security services and about to ship out to Geneva to help co-ordinate the upcoming war effort, leaving her with her cousins: 14 yr old Isaac (Tom Holland), 7 yr old Piper (Harley Bird) and handsome 16 yr old Edmond (George Mackay). Their rustic idyll is cut dramatically short when a nuclear bomb is dropped on London (Eerily heard as a distant thud followed by a strong wind and an ash snowfall) and martial law is declared. During this period, Elizabeth learns to love her English roots, her cousins, and especially Edmond, who despite being her 1st cousin engages in a passionate first love affair that ends up defining them both (Let's hope they never decide to have children!) But Britain itself has been invaded by an unidentified enemy force (probably the Russians given the uniforms and Slavic looks) and paradise is soon lost. Evacuated by the military, Edmond and Isaac are drafted as army cadets while Elizabeth and Piper are fostered by a couple while they work on a nearby food production farm. But as the Russians (maybe?) come knocking, Elizabeth eschews further military help and takes Piper with her on a long night of the soul voyage to try and find the others, especially Edmond, whom she sees in her dreams and visions (it is implied early on the two have a psychic link) through the occupied countryside, living off the land and witnessing the many horrors of war (rape, mass graves, shot down civilian airliners full of dead passengers,etc) and testing their resolve to the full. Will she find her new soul mate, and what life will they manage to make for themselves after all the horror?
The film, directed by veteran Kevin McDonald, looks great and has a nice sense of pastoral elegance about it, with the beautiful British countryside being the backdrop to both love and death, joy and pain, beauty and horror. The cast are all good, especially the star of the show Ronan, who has been carving a niche for herself as special but tormented teens yearning to reach out and find a common humanity. Initially a neurotic bitch, with her disco haircut and make up making her look eerily like a young Sharon Stone, she charts the inevitable growth of her character well, but alas is poorly served by the script, which requires so little of her given the circumstances. A lot is implied through the photography, imagery, music and strange visions that Ronan herself is required to do little actual "acting" herself. Same goes for the talented George Mackay, who is meant to embody an ideal of love and masculinity (he appears as Adam himself in several visions) but is not asked to do much to prove it apart from bring out the nice side of his own cousin. The younger kids Holland and Bird are also very likable without being annoying, a tough act especially for Bird who is meant to be a typically chirpy happy gay 7 yr old in the middle of Hell itself but naturally unaware of any of it.
The film has a nice poetry and lyricism to it, and doesn't pull its punches in depicting the horrors of war and occupation (it has a 15 certificate in the UK, equivalent to R in the States) yet it does not quite have the impact desired. The main problem is that it's all been seen and done before so many times, in the old post nuclear dramas ("Survivors", "The Day After", etc) in the original "Red Dawn", "Cold Mountain" and others, and bleak post-apocalyptic dramas like "The Road" "A Boy and his dog" "War of the Worlds" (2005) and of course "28 days later", which this film most obviously resembles. There isn't anything fresh or original here, just more bliss before the storm, the loss of paradise, the long hard trek and paradise (sort of) regained. It also doesn't help that the central romance between Elizabeth and Edmond is hardly of the burning eternal passion kind (maybe it was in the book, or maybe it's all just a crutch that Elizabeth has largely created for herself), further compounded by the inevitable inescapable fact that they are first blood cousins who share a set of grandparents! Maybe it would have been OK in Jane Austen's time, but it's pretty disturbing now.
A solid film, hard, tough, well-directed and acted, yet lacking drive, motivation, passion, or indeed anything really fresh to say about the situation it is depicting, it will both engage and yet also leave you wanting more.