The End We Start From

Society is thrown into chaos after a natural disaster, a woman faces a huge challenge to keep her new born baby safe.

It's a film that's hard to hate, but virtually impossible to love, it promised so much, but offered relatively little.

It's a disaster story, but not a disaster movie, the focus is very much on the mother, and motherhood, we learn relatively noting about the disaster, it's just a talking point for that most part.

You can't argue with the acting, Jodie Comer and Joel Fry are both very good, but the script could have been a little sharper, and a bit more interesting, it's a little disjointed.

It's watchable, it has some interesting elements, but ultimately it was a little disappointing, and that ending, it reminded me of that hilarious ending from The Day after tomorrow.

Mehhh.

6/10.

With a fairly biblical storm raging outside, an heavily pregnant mother (Jodie Comer) is sitting at home watching the telly. Power goes out, waters break then the struggle to get boyfriend (Joel Fry) and ambulance to hospital is the start of their woes. Leaving, they discover that huge swathes of England are under water so they head to higher ground and his parents. Fortunately, they have had a long ridiculed bit of a siege mentality so there's plenty of food but that's about all as the family units begin to disintegrate, just as society is doing at large elsewhere. The couple become separated and the un-named mother must now find safety for herself and her baby until some form of normality returns. This is another hugely emotional effort from Comer with Fry, a fleetingly potent contribution from Benedict Cumberbatch and a strong role for new-found friend Katherine Waterson working well, too. The story though - well it reminded me a little of "Children of Men" (2006). A rather depressing and dreary chronology - augmented with some flashbacks of happier days - of how individuals deal with disaster, be they self induced or imposed, and I struggled to remain engaged as the narrative lumbered along. The direction and the score are also fairly lacklustre. One too many shots of cars driving along, of mother carrying baby, cheering baby, nursing baby - and talking of the baby, boy does it age! If it's meant to be a very personal, intimate even, indictment of mankind's inhumanity to itself when facing desperation then it just about works, anything else was rather wasted on me, I'm afraid.

I had been putting off watching The End We Start From for a few months, only because I knew that I needed to be in the right state of mind to take it all in.

I was not left disappointed. This British Indie disaster film is so quiet and understated, I can imagine if it had been done in America, it would have been quite over the top.

Jodie Comer is brilliant as a mother trying to get herself and her baby through the flooding disaster that has hit the UK. Separated from her partner she battles to keep them safe and battles with her memories to try and let go.

This is honestly an extraordinary film. I highly recommend it.

I knew almost nothing about "The End We Start From" when I booked my ticket, no trailer, no poster even, it just worked out timewise so I took the plunge. Whilst the performances were pretty good, I'm less convinced of the point of the actual story.

A couple (Jodie Comer and Joel Fry) have a baby, just as the UK is in the early stages of an ecological crisis. Months of ongoing rainfall leave much of the country underwater and make the low-lying towns and cities uninhabitable. They travel north, to the home of the parents of Fry's character (Mark Strong and Nina Sosanya) but as the rain continues to fall, their supplies dwindle, and the population slowly begins to get desperate.

I'd say I appreciated the film, more than I actually liked it. It's dragged along by another virtuosa performance from Jodie Comer, who is in virtually every scene. She's ably supported by Fry though, who abandons his usual comedic turns for something altogether more haunted. The really strong supporting cast also include roles for Katherine Waterston, Gina McKee and a cameo from Benedict Cumberbatch. It's a very British version of this sort of story and the scenes of London devastation brought to mind "28 Days Later". You can tell how serious things are becoming when we won't form an orderly queue for emergency supplies.

I'm not really sure what it was in service of though. I feel like there must be a bigger theme that I'm missing, I suspect that it's perhaps loss and coping mechanisms, as we're told later in the film that Comer's characters parents recently passed away, and she's not really dealt with it. Generally, the story feels like a largely unconnected series of vignettes though and it was, for me, lacking some moment of ultimate revelation. I wonder if, in the book, it's easier to tie a connection between the commune's decision to abandon life as it was, in comparison to her decision to have a baby as way of dealing with her parents' death. Maybe I'm way off though.

So, lots to admire about this, but not a whole lot to love and I can't imagine that I'll ever see the need to watch it again.

This is Jody Comer's film throughout: the camera hardly leaves her from start to finish. Its a low-budget disaster/dystopia movie with some obvious references to climate change and how it could impact on ordinary people and society. The End We Start From isn't a classic disaster movie with overused CGI, a cast of thousands and a budget running into several hundred millions (thankfully) Its an insular, intimate portrait of one woman and her newly born baby trying to survive a terrible natural disaster and on this level, it largely works.

Comer gets some sterling, if fleeting acting support from Joel Fry, Katherine Waterson, Benedict Cumberbatch and Mark Strong, yet every scene is a platform for her acting ability. Sometimes she says nothing at all, just shows some wonderful maternal love and support for her infant and displays a naturalistic presence in the face of hopelessness.

The movie itself is sparse to say the least. It just about gets across the message of how things could be in this type of situation. However, many scenes are far too abstract and simplistic. A little more context is required, even just a background radio giving out emergency bulletins or a broken road sign along a soggy road to give some geographical placing. Society breaks down, as it inevitably would and the Brits show their legendary stoicism, but it's all on one level, not much horror and no humour - both essential in any successful disaster, dystopian movie; it borders on the boring.

In the end the excellent Comer pulls it through.