Director Mahalia Belo and screenwriter Alice Birch transform the typical disaster movie by turning away from large-scale visuals of the catastrophe itself; instead, the camera’s focus is captured by the nameless people of our story. The film is told in a poetic mode - it is atmospheric and subdued, built upon harrowingly beautiful visuals and a hypnotic score.
The Film ends and starts in a London terrace house. This is where we first meet our protagonist, an unnamed and heavily pregnant woman played by the fantastic Jodie Comer. Heavy rainfall turns into flooding and, all at once, her world falls apart as she goes into premature labour and her waters break just as the flood crashes into her home.
A mixture of floodwater and amniotic fluid pool at her ankles, upending life as she knew it. After the birth of her son, she learns from her husband, “R” (Joel Fry), that they cannot return home. So, the young family journey up north to stay with R’s parents. Once they arrive, a series of dream-like sequences play out as they revel in the joy of their new addition.
Completely self-sufficient, the family become cocooned in a soft haze of comfort as the sounds of catastrophe morph into background noise- like the drum of rain on the window during a storm. However, tragedy strikes and the young parents leave and become separated. This is where the film really dives deeply into the thematic of Hunter’s novel - the isolation and uncertainty of motherhood. From now onwards we accompany our protagonist on her solo journey to find normalcy for her child in the turbulent world he has been born into.
“We’ll go home, and you’ll grow tall and strong and kind and you won’t remember any of this”.
"Woman" (Jodie Comer)
Despite the sparseness of Hunter’s original novel (the book is less than 150 pages), Belo’s first feature film masterfully brings it to life. A sporadic script reminds us of the film’s novelistic roots; therefore, we rely on close up shots of Comer and her baby, juxtaposed with an eagle-eyed view of their travels; to remind us both of the enormity of her situation and the intimacy between mother and son.
Belo’s restrained direction perfectly replicates the atmosphere of the novel. It is hazy and fragmented, flitting between narrative and poetic interludes. It never once engages with the politics of climate change or explains the situation outside of the domestic sphere. As viewers, we are trapped within the intimate space shared by mother and baby, reminiscent of Emma Donoghue's novel Room (2010).
The End We Start From compares motherhood to flooding in the way it sweeps you off your feet and changes life as you know it. Additionally, the film does very well in recreating the tonality of the novel, specifically the ‘milky haze’ at its centre. The early pages of the novel are drowsy and sodden with breast milk as England is submerged in floodwater, the narrator and her son are swaddled in this drowsiness and “drunk” on milk.
In the film, Anna Meredith's score conveys this perfectly, the electronic and melancholy soundtrack is almost hypnotic, despite the devastation played out on screen we feel as if we are being rocked to sleep by its gentle synths. An intimate solace between mother and son, film and audience.
The End We Start From is a unique, femicentric take on the typical “survival thriller”. The narrative is somewhat light but still hard to watch because it feels so current with themes of climate change and refugees present in our daily news broadcasts. At its core, the film is an exploration of motherhood that we don’t often see on the big screen, portrayed in all its beautiful yet terrifying moments - Jodie Comer embodies this brilliantly. A melancholic yet hopeful piece of cinema, the film’s sense of immediacy places the audience within the story yet promises the viewers that the end is only the path towards new beginnings.