Dystopian films about the end of the world have to balance on their precarious tightrope the terrifying threat of extinction and the human resilience that fuels an almost unshakeable sense of hope. There is no better catalyst for hope than a reminder of the possibilities of a future, and no better reminder of the future than children. Think Alfonso Cuarón’s seminal Children of Men or John Hillcoat’s The Road, two dystopian stories that see ordinary men turn into heroes thanks to a primal desire to defend and protect the children under their care.
Mahalia Belo’s feature debut The End We Start From employs similar tactics. An unnamed mother (Jodie Comer) is forced into early labor when water comes crashing down through the gaping windows of her London townhouse. The water, it turns out, won’t stop coming. With London now submerged, the mother, father R (Joel Fry), and their newborn daughter head out to the countryside, where R’s family lives in a rustic cottage with a fully stocked pantry and fertile ground able to keep their mouths full and their bodies strong. This being a post-apocalyptic drama, their idyllic life in the country can’t last, of course, and soon tragedy comes knocking on their door, breaking apart the family and sending mother and baby on their own journey of survival.
In her novel The End We Start From, author Megan Hunter doesn’t say much about the ecological disaster that renders a global city unlivable, nor does she reveal if the same thing has happened anywhere else. The screenplay adaptation by Alice Birch follows that lead; as director, Belo decides instead to translate literary prose through visual contemplation, with the mother encapsulating the emotional torment of facing the unknown while carrying a small baby in her arms. The film’s greatest triumph lies in the casting of Jodie Comer, an actress capable of communicating even the slightest change of psychological gears, just as effective in moments of passion shared between two lovers as she is while standing on the precipice of oblivion.
Comer is joined by Elisabeth Waterston as a fellow mother at an emergency shelter, Mark Strong as R’s loving dad, and executive producer Benedict Cumberbatch as a soulful nomad. While the latter two have only brief cameos, Waterston slides into the spot of spirited sidekick, punctuating moments of dread with little quips about the not-so-rose-tinted realities of motherhood. It’s a relationship that grows quickly tiresome, the quiet, mourning mother and the one-dimensional friend who exists only to provide the lead character with glaringly manufactured interactions to bring up her backstory. We know as little about the lives of the supporting characters as we know about London’s sudden transformation into an open-air aquarium, and such a disconnect makes it hard to feel for their shortcomings.
And here lies the Achilles heel of Belo’s debut: by favoring muted meditation over a much-needed pinch of dramatic exposure, The End We Start From lacks an emotional pull. We never get to witness the blood-chilling terror of the flood nor are we allowed the time to feel for the people whose lives have been so abruptly uprooted. All attempts to establish sympathy with the mother come from her position as, well, a mother, or hurried flashbacks employed as a crutch whenever the story hits one of its many dead ends. Such aimlessness muddles the film’s timing: while the second act drags endlessly, the conclusion feels rushed, with characters coming in and out of the story with little justification for their existence apart from, of course, advancing the mother’s journey.
By the time a much-teased reunion comes, it feels a bit too little, too late. Patience, it turns out, is a scarce commodity too, and it is tricky to chase down a reward in The End We Start From’s haystack of frustration. It’s a shame, because Belo occasionally captures a glimpse of raw humanity: in the very few moments where Comer gets to dwell on the grief that accompanies motherhood, or the losses that come with beginnings as much as with endings. For just a second, we get to fully comprehend the magnitude of what is at stake.
