A woman tries to find her way home with her newborn while an environmental crisis submerges London in floodwaters.

‘The End We Start From’ is a survival thriller set in a United Kingdom suffering from an ecological crisis where the rain is constant, causing extreme flooding and subsequent food shortages. It stars Jodie Comer as a young mother attempting to keep her baby safe, fleeing north with her partner (Joel Fry) away from London to seek refuge with his parents in the countryside. She will soon find refuge is temporary, sending her on a journey to keep her and her baby alive while seeking some solace in a world where all hope appears to be gone.

This is quite an understated piece of work from director Mahalia Belo, with no flashy set pieces or dramatic scenes of floods washing over London, as you might expect from a bigger budget drama. Instead, this is a personal story about Jodie Comer’s character and a rumination on the lengths a mother will go to in order to protect her child. That is both the movie’s greatest strength, with Jodie Comer typically committed and brilliant in the leading role, and it’s weakness, as I felt its low key nature meant it wasn’t always as compelling as I wanted it to be.

The narrative takes the form of a road trip movie (only without cars for the most part), as our central character meets various individuals along her journey, providing an opportunity to share personal stories about how the crisis has affected them. In that respect the closest resemblance in other media to the tone ‘The End We Start From’ has in my view is the video game (and now TV series) ‘The Last of Us’ – albeit minus the zombie killings and brutal violence! The similarities come in how it finds the humanity in the everyday, in how it explores the strength and resolve of people to get up and keep going when faced with immeasurable tragedy and upheaval. It also transfers through to the depictions we did get of London, for example, where the damage of the flooding is well depicted in the subtly drawn backdrops.

‘The End We Start From’ is a solid vehicle for an excellent Jodie Comer performance, well directed by Mahalia Belo with a lot to say about motherhood and humanity through its thoughtful depiction of the impact of an ecological crisis. It may be a little too understated for some, as it was for me, but there is a lot to enjoy from this different take on a survival thriller.

Rating: 3/5

Directed By: Mahalia Belo

Starring: Jodie Comer, Katherine Waterston, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong, Joel Fry, Gina McKee and Nina Sosanya

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt21810682/