3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The End We Start From

2023, Mahalia Belo (Requiem) -- download

I may be over my post-apocalypse fascination, especially when the stories are far too tempered in reality. I had the opportunity to watch this movie in one sitting, but I had to turn it off. It may have been my mind at the moment, but.... it was just too sad. I was too overwhelmed by the grief, the loss, the end of it all. I weathered the second and final viewing much better.

Its the climate apocalypse. Super storms are ravaging England. A woman (Jodie Comer, The Last Duel) and a man (Joel Fry, Yesterday) have not left their house, hoping to wait it all out. She is pregnant. But the worst happens and they have to abandon the house and the flooded streets of London, just as she's having the baby. Soon out of the hospital, with failing power and panic, they drive to his parents place, pseudo-survivalists living in an isolated home in the woods, packed with enough food to last forever, more than enough to wait it all out. Except it does last and things do not go immediately back to normal.

The movie opens with tragedy compounded. Normal lives are upended, and ended. For much of the movie it is the woman and the baby Zeb. The baby is the only character ever named, ignoring the letters assigned to each character, a carry over from the adapted novel by Megan Hunter, as listed in IMDB. Despite that leaning, this is not overtly a movie about the beauty and joys of motherhood, for as much as the woman will do anything to save and protect her baby, her memories constantly fall back to her husband. You slowly see how they met, how they connected, a rather mundane meet cute, no grand love affair, no great connection written across the stars, just two people who met each other, and soon ... became three. 

But in revelation, this is not a post-apocalyptic movie. The world has not ended for this couple and their baby, they have just... survived an apocalyptic event. In many ways, it is not all that different than what we see each tornado season in the US, when entire towns are blown away, and the survivors huddle together in shelters until they can return to normal life. Of course, the impact here is greater, vaster in scale, as the loss & dispersal of much of the population of London is not easily weathered, but the movie is about resilience. No matter what happens to you, you can return to normal. But this family will grow in an entirely new normal, something we are familiar with right now, but I fear we are quickly forgetting the impact of.

On a final note, I look back in my paragraphs above, and I did little commentary on the movie and more on the story a I experienced it through the lens of a movie. I often comment I am not writing movie reviews, but who am I kidding, that is the lens through which the blog is written. Kent is embracing that fully, and growing, expanding his horizons on critical thinking, and critical watching. It is undeniable that I watch many movies from the shadow of That Guy, and notice the components of the movie, and write about. And it is undeniable that I am fascinated by the making of movies, the industry behind it, the toxicity and wonder. But sometimes, I am just captured by the story, which I think is the intent behind it all?