The Girl with all the Gifts
Cert 15A; Now Showing With so many genres and subgenres done to death the most logical path to originality for any story is to cross-pollinate and subvert some of the conventions. The results can be mixed, like Gangster Squad (nominally a gangster film but with war film conventions) or brilliant like Her (Sci-fi with romcom conventions) but they are rarely boring.
However they can suffer because they’re difficult to package and hard to know to whom to pitch. The Girl With All the Gifts runs the risk of falling between stools, it’s a kind of zombie drama which works on many levels.
In this Mike Carey adapts his own best-selling teen novel of the same name for Colm (Sherlock, Doctor Who) McCarthy’s big screen directorial debut. The post-apocalypse story concerns a fungal infection which has turned most of the world into “hungries”, which is a terrible name for zombies. A decade or so in and non-infected humans are limited to life in a few heavilyguarded isolated spots. In a camp in England a young girl, Melanie (Sennia Nanua) is one of several children imprisoned and closely guarded. But Melanie is special and attracts the attention of both scientist Dr Caroline Caldwell (Glenn Close) and teacher Helen Justineau (Gemma Arterton).
Their intentions for the girl are very different however, whilst the teacher is only affectionate, the scientist sees a project. But just as she is about to complete her project the hungries overrun the camp and scientist, teacher, Melanie and a few soldiers under the command of Sgt Parks (Paddy Considine) find themselves fleeing for their lives with nothing but a few guns and some scent disguising spray.
I rather thought that Glenn Close hammed up the mad scientist thing but she was vital, if nothing else for plot exposition. Through her we learn that the reason Melanie is so special is that she is second-generation hungry, evolved from the mindless flesh-eating zombies of the first wave and a possessor of the brain and spine which might offer a vaccine and save humanity. All of the usual obstacles befall the group, in-house squabbling, car trouble and there are many almost cliche story conventions about people not being what they seem and who gets to live and who has to die. The effects, especially the shots of a decimated London, are quite ropey, and borderline product placement-ish. Both script and directing needed to be a bit tighter, pacing is off, the second act needed better editing but the film works on lots of levels.
It’s always good to see Paddy Considine and both he and Gemma Arterton deliver in albeit not terribly demanding roles.
Newcomer Sennia Nanua almost inevitably steals the show, giving an excellent performance in the lead. There is an interesting conclusion, some good lines and despite the flabby midriff the story does roll along well, offering an appeal that is far broader than the teen novel origin might suggest. HHH AINE O’CONNOR