The apocalypse? How dull. How I Live Now adds nothing new to this raked over genre

By Chris Tookey

Published: 18:35 EST, 3 October 2013 | Updated: 17:33 EST, 10 October 2013

 HOW I LIVE NOW (15)                                                                                                  

VERDICT: It's not a blast

Rating: 2 Star Rating

Meg Rosoff’s young adult novel about a teenager struggling to survive in the aftermath of nuclear war was a big hit with readers, but here director Kevin Macdonald mishandles it.

Not even the outstanding young actress Saoirse Ronan can overcome her character’s unattractiveness.

Her lack of interest in the world means we never really know what’s going on or why.

Scroll down to watch the trailer

A turn-off: Even the outstanding actress Saoirse Ronan can't make her character likeable

A turn-off: Even the outstanding actress Saoirse Ronan can't make her character likeable

Her obsessive, quasi-incestuous pursuit of a hunk who happens to be her cousin (George Mackay, nowhere near as interesting as he is in Sunshine On Leith) comes across as a naive crush, rather than the deep spiritual bond the author intends.

 

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Our heroine’s dragging of her youngest cousin through dangerous countryside looks less like a rational plan than wilful selfishness, and her attitude towards the child seems more cruel than caring.

We have been in post-apocalyptic wildernesses before, in movies from The Road to 28 Days Later,  but this one seems unimaginative and insufficiently thought through.

And the film’s worst sin is that it’s dull. 

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6.8 IMDB so far.

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I love the book but this movie looks totally different. Not sure I'm pleased with it.

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