Did new film “The Girl with All the Gifts” just rip off one of the best video games of all time, “The Last of Us?” The film premiered in Austin last week at Fantastic Fest and a few people were grumbling that it did.
The answer is emphatically, no. In fact, the film is based upon a young adult novel written by M. R. Carey which came out around the same time as when the game was created. They just share a similar story line which isn’t unusual for this genre if you read post apocalyptic fiction.
“The Girl with All the Gifts” is set in England, and after a post apocalyptic event where the population has been decimated by a fungus that renders those infected to become “Hungries.” Almost everyone is dead or living in military bunkers. The Hungries are fast moving, ravenous zombies who go dormant or complacent when there isn’t any food around. Existence for the humans is pretty much counted day by day as a cure may soon be on the horizon. The cure may possibly come from an unusual source, -a small group of children who are neither fully human, nor fully a Hungry.
Immediately from film opening you recognize that these are not ordinary children. The opening scenes are intriguing and immediately reel you in to this vastly different world. The kids are restrained in wheel chairs, but they look normal. They even attend a type of school where they are taught about what life use to be like from a kind teacher named Helen Justineau (Gemma Arterton). It doesn’t take long to learn why the children are restrained after Helen touches one of her pupils.
Dr. Caldwell (Glen Close) walks a tight line between doing what is morally right, and what is best for the greater good. She’s determined to save the human race. Close’s character is probably one of the most pivotal roles in the film and I was surprised to see her turn up in a Zombie film but she’s an integral part to making this film go from being standard to exemplary.
Helen (Arterton), who spends a great deal of time teaching the children has issues with how the kids are treated. Their strapped down, mostly immobilized, and live in dismal jail cells and roughly handled by soldiers who relentlessly never cease to have a gun pointed at them. She’s morally torn from seeing the kids as innocents, and to what they possibly represent. The morality here plays a great deal into creating a dynamic that fills most of the story. That morality is one of the questions you’ll be pondering during the film and one that will resonate with you after if you so choose. Especially when you get to the ending.
“The Girl with All the Gifts” is in reference to Melanie. She’s perhaps the smartest, if not politest group of the bunch. When things begin to change, her plight takes on a new manifestation. Much of the second half of the film is dedicated to giving you the point of view of those trying to survive and not just from the humans point of view which makes this film’s story line intriguing but from various points.
The style and tone really mimic one of the all time great, fast running zombie films of all time, “28 Days Later.” The color is muted, and everything is given a dismal look overall. Vistas are mostly empty if not for the Hungries, and random animals that have so far escaped the Hungries paints an effecting landscape to a world without many humans. Director Colm McCarthy takes advantage of this landscape to set striking and contrasting scenes between what is, and what was.
If you’ve read “I Am Legend” by Richard Mathison (not the movie “I Am Legend”) which has one of the greatest sci/fi endings of all time, then you can get a clue as to where the ending of the film may be headed. That’s the only hint I supply as to the finale.
The film is directed by Colm McCarthy who didn’t actually go to film school. It’s said that he just loves and watched a lot of movies growing up and that was his school. He’s also known for directing most of season two Netflix’s “Peakey Blinders,” which incidentally stars Cillian Murphy who starred in “28 Days Later.” While the story is exceedingly well written, and directed by McCarthy, the moments he chooses to include of contrasting a violent moment of survival with a quiet moment of just enjoying a small thing like someone reading a book to you are wisely chosen and paced throughout the film.
“The Girl with All the Gifts” plays well to two distinct audiences, those who like the action films with gory violence, -which is never taken for granted nor played down in the film; And those who want the smarts behind good science fiction. The mixture of quiet moments, and striking visuals of action sequences really do leave you on the edge of your seat for a solid portion of the movie.
“Girl …” takes everything good about the fast-running zombie genre and post apocalyptic world story-telling and one-ups it by filling it with subtext of the next order, morality versus survival. If you are there for the violent gore of what life would be like existing in that world, or the mental exercise of wondering who has a right to live you, will find this film more than noteworthy. Certain to make many top ten lists this year.
Final Verdict: 4 out of 5
The US release date has not been determined but is now playing in the UK.