The all-conquering Jodie Comer turns in another terrific performance in this too-close-for-comfort sci-fi. Comer plays an unnamed, heavily pregnant woman whose waters break just as her pretty suburban home starts to flood. This is not merely a minor domestic issue or a walloping metaphor; persistent heavy rains have put much of the United Kingdom underwater, leading to the evacuation of cities, a shortage of food, and mass panic that drives desperate people to desperate things. Her child’s earliest days are a fight for survival.
Adapted by screenwriter Alice Birch (the excellent Lady Macbeth) from Megan Hunter’s 2017 novel of the same name, The End We Start From follows a well-worn path but gives it a scary sense of plausibility. Many climate change disaster movies focus on drought and unbearable heat, but here the country is thrown into turmoil by rain than won’t stop. While the journey through a disintegrating country covers a lot of disaster movie tropes – marauding gangs, ineffectual military, a possibly mythical safe paradise – the cause of it is chilling in its simplicity.
While the journey through a disintegrating country covers a lot of disaster movie tropes – marauding gangs, ineffectual military, a possibly mythical safe paradise – the cause of the disaster is chilling in its simplicity. There is no sudden, cataclysmic event, just very bad, ceaseless rain. It’s a problem we already see most years, simply beefed up.
This cataclysm is reachably close to normal life – and all the scarier for it
Mahalia Belo, an experienced TV director making her feature debut, steers the audience gently through Comer’s character’s building panic. It unfolds initially as a series of inconveniences not very removed from everyday life. The hospital where the baby is born is harried and overrun. Reaching somewhere safe mostly means boring traffic jams. Nights are still spent watching game shows as society crumbles. When the situation turns more frightening, it feels like the dial has been turned up only a notch or two. It is reachably close to normal life – and all the scarier for it. On an evidently small budget, Belo also does an excellent job of suggesting a whole nation collapsing, showing enough of the chaos to make us believe the world stretches well beyond the edges of the frame.
Comer is superb. Her character moves from lighthearted and positive, joking about baby names with her partner (Cruella’s Joel Fry); to terrified survivor, desperate to protect her child but also exhausted by its reliance; to something worryingly close to the ruthless masses she fears. Most of this has to play out on her silent face. If the film ends up somewhere a little too neat, Comer makes the journey always worthwhile.
In cinemas worldwide Jan 19.
