How I Live Now

Synopsis: Daisy (Saoirse Ronan) is a motherless 15-year-old American teenager sent to live with her cousins in the idyllic British countryside. At first she is surly and resentful, but soon begins to thaw as she spends time with 17-year-old Eddie (George MacKay), 14-year-old Isaac (Tom Holland) and 8-year -old Piper (Harley Bird). It helps that she and Eddie are falling in love, but then the unthinkable happens – London is attacked by a possible nuclear device and a war breaks out. As martial law is implemented and invading forces attack, they are separated from each other, put into forced labour and must struggle simply to stay alive. 

Young adult novelist Meg Rosoff wrote the book from which this film has been adapted. One can’t help but think of Tomorrow When the War Began when watching this film, but it has a quite different sensibility. Director McDonald (Last King of Scotland, Touching The Void) is skilled at bringing suspense to his films without going into melodrama.

The film works really well on a number of levels. It is initially a vision of a bucolic idyll and childhood innocence. All this is shattered by the horrific reality of a destructive adult world. It is also the story of Daisy’s growing up. She arrives a bitter and twisted teen, with Goth clothing and punk hair but is soon softened by the rural lifestyle and even more so by first love. Resentful of having no mother of her own, when she is thrust into the role of mothering little Piper it is the making of her.

McDonald has crafted a film that successfully straddles two worlds – that of the adolescent and the adult – making it suitable for a wide range of audiences. The natural world is filmed with an almost picture postcard perfection: rolling green English fields, herds of healthy brown bovines, voluminous roses, idyllic streams and so on. The comparison between this and the post-attack world is harsh and telling, both in colour palette and content. There are several moments of unexpected violence and extreme brutality, especially towards women but they are never laboured or exploited and whilst demonstrating the horror of war they serve more as a source of sorrow at man’s cruelty.

Ronan (The Lovely Bones, Atonement), now 18, is just getting better and better as she matures, and she invests Daisy with the all the requisite intense emotions we’d expect from a teen on the cusp of adulthood. The love story component is beautifully handled. Nothing dubious is implied in the fact that the kids are cousins, indeed it only adds to the connectedness. Ronan and MacKay fire really well together on screen. The two younger cousins are also very well portrayed – the old-for-his-age Isaac, and little Piper feel completely natural and the child actors are to be highly commended.

With its thematic richness and strong performances How I Live Now is the sort of film that gets better and better upon reflection whilst any soundtrack that manages to work in a Nick Drake song gets a favourable glance from me.

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