The End We Start From (2023) Review!!

Synopsis – A woman who along with her newborn try to find their way home as environmental crisis that submerges London in flood waters and sees a young family torn apart in the chaos.

My Take – While disaster films generally adopt a CGI-heavy approach to sell the said calamity on screen, but, this British feature sees first-time director Mahalia Belo and screenwriter Alice Birch (Lady Macbeth, The Wonder) forgo intense imagery, back-stabbing narratives, and seat-gripping moments for a more grounded approach to a story focused on the strength inspired by motherhood.

Indeed, in light of the recent environmental occurrences, the film based on Megan Hunter‘s 2017 novel proves quite timely. As we witness just how quickly things can change during a catastrophe, and perhaps equally important, we witness how behaviors change in desperate times.

However, as a viewer it also turns out, patience is a scarce commodity, especially when it comes to thin plotting. By favoring a quiet deliberate meditative style over the necessary dramatic pull, director Belo and screenwriter Birch fail to navigate a story that is as muddy as the showcased flooded grounds of London.

Forget about nailing the human connection at its core, the slow pace and narrative ellipses even leaves time to idly wonder how can a survival film that also has a scene featuring a carjacking, be so tedious?

The only thing that works here is Jodi Comer‘s lead performance. Along with looking jaw-dropping gorgeous, she lives and breathes her powerful turn, and is flawless throughout, even when the story slows to a crawl toward the end.

The story follows a woman (Jodie Comer) who gives birth to her first child, Zeb, on the same day heavy rainfall starts submerging London, forcing her and her husband (Joel Fry) to pack up their newborn, evacuate their home and seek refuge at his parents’ (Mark Strong, Nina Sosanya) country home.

But soon the lack of resources and the escalating tensions in increasingly starving and isolated communities around them break any sense of safety they might have achieved.

And when tragedy strikes, mother and baby are left alone, forcing the new mother to faces many challenges along the way as she befriends another new mom (Katherine Waterston), who makes a good travel companion, and a loner (Benedict Cumberbatch) who provides the women with the much needed serving of food and momentary distraction.

It’s relatively easy to predict the path that the film will follow, with more or fewer similarities to other features and TV shows of the same genre, including themes about nature and motherhood. Mostly what we see is how people react to traumatic situations when desperation takes over. Law and order gives way to human needs and selfishness.

Understandably, these reactions take on varying tones and looks like sometimes it’s looters at the shelter, while other times it’s an island community isolated from collapsing society and working together to begin fresh.

It’s a solid narrative, one that benefits from a certain topicality and the possibility that such a disaster could genuinely happen, but its impetus dries up in the final third, resulting in a hurried and near-facile ending.

Audience will experience vicarious anxiety as the mother and child trudge on, yet again, it must be noted that little here happens. Though the cinematography stands out from the other technical aspects, 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 everything.

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. Even a much-teased reunion comes, but feels a bit too little, too late.

Leaving Jodie Comer to be the only reason to constantly keep watching. Continuing her streak of extraordinarily captivating performances, Comer is hardly ever off the screen here and handles the most tense sequences effortlessly. She’s never less than mesmerizing to watch and wholly credible both when she’s dealing with existential threats and expressing tenderness for her child.

Joel Fry is as the new dad is charming and easygoing, while Katherine Waterston, Mark Strong, Nina Sosanya, Gina McKee and Benedict Cumberbatch shine in small supporting roles. On the whole, ‘The End We Start From’ is a tedious post-apocalyptic drama which struggles to work despite a committed Jody Comer performance.