The Girl with All the Gifts (Colm McCarthy, 2016)
An interest amalgam of the young action fiction spirit of
The Hunger Games and the tropes and cinematic style of
28 Days Later and
Eye in the Sky. The latter was especially on my mind throughout
The Girl with All the Gifts, to the point where I misremembered Glenn Close being in the earlier film as well, instead of Helen Mirren. Both movies seem emblematic of a stylistic trend of modern British filmmaking that seems to derive from television rather than the other way around. (
Under the Shadow somewhat fits into this trend as well.) It's a very
arid style; the dramatic version of a dry wit. At times,
The Girl with All the Gifts felt like a continual series of plan américain shots designed to downplay the story's stakes and atmosphere, as if close-ups and artful compositions were avoided for fear of seeming self-indulgent. Even the musical score seems to be saying, "Please move along, there's nothing to see here, mind the gap." I don't understand it.
Anyway.
The Girl with All the Gifts film hovers between being good and just alright. Young Sennia Nanua does a remarkable job of carrying the film with a combination of endearingly sweet precociousness and tragic inhumanity. She's surrounded by an interesting cast that includes Glenn Close, Paddy Considine, Anamaria Marinca (I failed to recognize the former Filmspot winner!), and a couple of disposable black dudes because this is a horror movie after all. The script lays it on thick with Considine's character early on and I was dreading having to spend a full two hours with him, but he won me after all awhile, navigating his predictable arc with aplomb. I enjoyed how dark some of the turns were — darker than the lilt of Nanua's voice would suggest possible — but the finale didn't really feel right to me, sort of just, "That's cool, I suppose, but wait, what?" Thematically it works, though, and the line "Then why should it be us who die for you?" is worthy of Filmspot consideration.
One other note: The rules of the story seemed pretty murky. She's like, no, it's cool, I'm full from that cat, and they're like, oh, okay then, no probs. I don't think the film would survive a rewatch.
Grade: B-
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