No vampires or demon hunters in this one: Kevin Macdonald’s
triumphant adaptation of the teen-fiction bestseller by Meg Rosoff deals with
some very real issues without even a single appearance from a supernatural
being (who’d have thought it was possible?).
American girl Daisy (Saoirse
Ronan) enters an entirely different world when her father sends her away to
live with her cousins. Initially she plays the irritable goth chic who excludes
herself from any sort of fun and spends her time moping around the country
mansion trying to get phone signal, but after her aunt inexplicably flies off
to Switzerland for work she develops a relationship with the eldest cousin Edmond
and actually begins to enjoy herself. Frolicking around to the music of Nick
Drake in the Hobbity-Narnia countryside either down by the waterfall, in
the
woods nursing injured hawks or putting party hats on goats, everything’s very
idyllic and feels almost too perfect. Which is why when the effects of war
really hit hard and they find themselves split up and the girls evacuated to a
suburban home, the film takes a darker turn and they begin to fear for their
lives.
World War III is how
it’s described by the youngest cousin Piper, but nothing is ever explained in any
greater detail; bombs fall on London and widespread evacuation and forced
recruitments are the norm, yet it remains ambiguous as to who or what Britain
is fighting. How I Live Now is a film
that explores the effects of large-scale war from a teenage perspective rather than
the conflict itself and does so with a much greater nerve than you’d expect. Of
course it’s got that romantic edge to it that all films aimed at a teenage
demographic are obliged to include, but that doesn’t stop it from punching you
in the stomach every now and then. The rural settings are powerful contrasts to
the cities and towns now transformed into factories of war so that from the
second half onwards the atmosphere descends into a post-apocalyptic fight for
survival.
Ronan demonstrates again that she’s more
than capable of playing any role she sets her mind to, and both Tom Holland and
George Mackay are equally watchable, though highest praise goes to ten year old
Harley Bird (youngest BAFTA winner for voicing Pepper Pig) for a genuinely
moving performance. Though a little unfocused at times, How I
Live Now goes places where other films of this genre do not, confronting the
terrors of isolation, war and even death in a narrative that never fails to carry
itself forward. Original article published on: http://www.impactnottingham.com/2013/10/review-how-i-live-now/
