Can Jodie Comer Survive the Apocalypse—and a Mediocre Movie?

TORONTO, Canada—The end of the world arrives in a flood of water and affectations in The End We Start From, a post-apocalyptic drama that prioritizes superficial aesthetic frills over character and narrative depth. A survival story culled from the flotsam and jetsam of myriad superior doomsday ventures, director Mahalia Belo’s feature debut features a collection of insubstantial men and women and a steady stream of frustratingly diffuse situations. No matter Jodie Comer’s committed effort to wring something emotional from this cataclysmic saga, the film proves soggy in every respect.

Based on Megan Hunter’s novel of the same name, and premiering at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, The End We Start From wastes no time gussying up its action with unnecessary flourishes, from an introductory bathtub POV shot in which everything is slowly blurred out by rising white haziness, to a shot of Comer’s unidentified expectant mother rising from a couch (following a power outage) that twists about in order to gaze at her upside-down in a coffee table’s reflection—the latter an expression of the fact that her world is now on the brink of being hopelessly upended. With cacophonous rain continuing to hammer her London home, Comer’s protagonist bides her time until twin shocks arrive: early, powerful contractions and water creeping beneath the bottom of her door to saturate her residence.

It's apparently the end of the world as climate activists have known it, with Mother Nature attempting to drown the UK for crimes against the environment. As scripted by Alice Birch (Lady Macbeth, The Wonder), the reasons for this disaster are left deliberately vague, the better to focus on Comer’s disturbing moment-to-moment experiences. Brief radio reports indicate that the country is in disarray and that retreat to safer grounds is recommended, yet as in Hunter’s source material, everything is an elliptical blur, and in a manner that quickly turns out to be less evocative than aggravating. Somehow, Comer’s pregnant main character gets to a hospital in time to deliver her son, and she’s met there by her partner (Joel Fry), who may or may not be her husband, and who joins Comer in the bathroom as she pees so they can pick out an official moniker for their infant—because, apparently, this was never previously discussed. In short order, they settle on Zeb because why not.

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