The Girl with All the Gifts (2016) Review!!!

Synopsis – A scientist and a teacher living in a dystopian future embark on a journey of survival with a special young girl named Melanie.

My Take – Out of all the genres that have done to death literally, the zombie genre stands high in the list of exhausted category at least in matters of creativity. Yet, with the continuing popularity of TV shows like The Walking Dead, and movies like 28 Days Later, World War Z, Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland, it’s obvious the genre is going to remain ‘undead’ for quite a long time. While there have been so many zombie movies over the years , only a selected few , in my opinion, could label as anything higher than good, of course 28 Days Later is certainly one of them, and luckily so is this Colm McCarthy directed movie. Like some of the better movies of the genre, this movie provides two vital ingredients – creative writing & characters you care about. Adapted from the highly acclaimed novel, written by Mike Carey, a known figure in the comic books community for his work with Vertigo on notable titles such as Lucifer and Hellblazer, the story follows Melanie (Sennia Nanua), one of the members of a group of children being held in a military base and research centre in England. Here they are taught, while strapped into wheelchairs that are pushed into the classroom, by a sympathetic teacher called Miss Justineau (Gemma Arterton). They are also used in medical research by a team led by Dr. Caldwell (Glenn Close) who is trying to find a cure or vaccine for the fungal infection that turns people into hungries aka zombies. Turns out the children are from mothers who were infected before the children were born, and have a less damaging version of the fungal infection, the result they are neither human or hungries, but something different, and new species. However, when the military base gets overrun by hungries, Melanie, Miss Justineau, and Caldwell escape in an armored truck with two soldiers, Sargent Parks (Paddy Considine) and Private Gallagher (Fisayo Akinade). They plan to drive towards another military base but the truck is damaged and they have to continue on foot through the hungries’ infested suburbs of London. Following hesitance from others, Melanie starts to play an important role in helping the group navigate the dangerous streets as the hungries don’t attack anyone already infected with the fungus, so Melanie is able to move amongst them safely. Together the surviving group embarks on dangerous journey of survival that could lead to the survival of the human race.

This movie is without a doubt an intelligent, well paced specimen of the genre, with a good smattering of top-notch tension, aided and abetted by a soundtrack designed not for listening pleasure but rather the enhancement of nerve-jangling fear. This movie makes you care what happens to the main characters, an essential component of a good horror movie, which is down to a solid cast. As with many a quality zombie movies before it, the movie pitches in after the proverbial excrement has already hit the societal fan, in this case apparently many years after. How anybody survived years of a fungal infection which turns its victims into terrifying flesh- eating monsters is anybody’s guess. Be that as it may, in this apocalyptic future, a bunch of children who were infected while still in the womb have created a unique group of individuals who can rationalize, and even perhaps empathize, as humans can, while sharing with the infected the desire (usually overpowering) to eat human flesh. Melanie is one of a group of these children who have been educated while serving in a scientific programme designed to understand the infection and find a cure. The institution’s treatment of these children is harsh, based on a deep suspicion of their motives for co-operation and fear of their infectious capabilities on the part of the military personnel. With its interesting premise, the movie stands tall among other movies of the genre and more on the lines of excellent movies such as World War Z and 28 Days Later. Actually being a coming of age story of Melanie who comes to realize that she, and other feral children who like her, are the future of humanity as they can coexist with the fungal infection and has to take actions to ensure that she and the other children survive. While, the movie starts off very mysteriously, the moment the actual plot kicks in, are just everything keeps you excited on how things will unfold. Even though, the movie somewhat follows the familiar zombie/outbreak movie tropes, with them wandering around this rubble. The second act does slow things down, since the zombie’s dynamics here are pretty standard. But the subtext is what keeps it more interesting. The whole setup is basically a metaphor on how we treat the next generation: we get Gemma Arterton‘s character who finds hope on the young infected girl, Melanie, while everyone else fears on how she and her kind could threaten their existence. It’s a complex dilemma that makes it tough to predict how everything would turn out. The greatest feat of the directions is how it keeps its scenarios quite disorienting, especially with its music score, increasing its disorientation. Writer Mike Carey who also helped write the screenplay alongside director Colm McCarthy in only his second feature this is a haunting tale of survival and love and Nanua was just the perfect discovery to play the role of Melanie. Unlike other zombie movies out there instead this is very clever with a lot of drama and scares rolling through it, in this the infected called hungries hunt in packs and they are a clever mix-up of between the sprinting infected in 28 Days Later and the fungus covered infected from the popular game The Last of Us but they also do the most unique thing a part that nobody has seen in a zombie movie before these infected fall asleep, and when the team of survivors must walk quietly between an entire horde of sleeping un-dead.

Director Colm McCarthy tells this story with such a delicacy and gets down to the gritty stuff when necessary very well, and you really do feel the transition, one stand out moment being a disturbing sequence set in an abandoned newsagents. Aided by some beautiful cinematography from Simon Dennis and intricate production design from Kristian Milsted, this movie can also be termed as I Am Legend done right. I was hugely surprised by the visual sufficiency of the movie. I figured it would just be another low-budget English production. Okay, that’s exactly what it is, but it doesn’t mean they scrimped out on the movie’s visual quality. The CGI present is subtle and sparingly used, preferring to use and merge in-camera footage instead. The apocalyptic landscape on display is one of the most convincing apocalyptic landscapes I’ve seen, created by putting the overgrown scenery of Chernobyl across London’s skyline. It’s obviously been a number of years since the initial outbreak, so the city is overrun with trees and shrubbery. Cristobal Tapia de Veer‘s score adds such a haunting element to the movie as well. Plus this movie learns the lesson that guns are loud and when you shoot a gun you can get an entire horde on you, also the mass hordes of un-dead don’t hang around in buildings they just loom on the streets of London. As mentioned before, the cinematography is great as well though, with some inspiring imagery created with interesting uses of composition and lighting. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it looks particularly artistic, but it certainly has a good go at it. In the saddest ending ever that may even make you cry the finale is powerful and moving and very upsetting at first we see a girl whose smart, beautiful and strong and this is shown throughout the movie there is one moment when she shows her strong side in a move that’s a bit brutish but still quite engaging to see. Despite the camaraderie during the finale it’s very powerful, moving and extremely beautiful and the story ends the way it started, this is an immaculate zombie-ish movie that isn’t just one of the best British zombie movies but it’s one of the best zombie movie ever. Coming to the performances, the movie possesses a number of experienced actors such as Paddy Considine and Glenn Close, who only help the movie excel above other zombie movies as they’re good actors, an ingredient usually missing from these movies. Along with Gemma Arterton & Fisayo Akinade, they are both very good in their roles however, the real star of the movie, and rightly so, is Sennia Nanua as Melanie, the twelve year old showcasing a performance of complete innocence and maturity beyond her years. On the whole, ‘The Girl With All the Gifts’ is an incredibly tense, gruesome and highly captivating zombie movie which is well performed, written and directed. This is one of the most captivating movies you’ll see all year.