How I Live Now  (2013)    42/100

Rating :   42/100                                                                     101 Min        15

Total crap. Yet another film (on the back of ‘Byzantium’ and ‘The Host’) that sees Saoirse Ronan playing an angsty teenager in love, who must deal with some enormous problem that is preventing her from having ecstatic fairytale love with her perfect man, as she stares angrily/stoically into space. The dramatic event is in this case a nuclear attack on London, and the subsequent invasion of the mainland that plunges Britain into darkness and separates her from the local churl that she is having desperate fantasies about (played by George MacKay) – often shown to us in lurid, jarring and bizarre dream vignettes. The trouble is that their cardboard romance doesn’t look like it would survive a trip to Blackpool never mind the end of the world, as the film, despite good cinematography and deserved kudos for the wardrobe department (anyone who dresses their heroine in a T-Shirt that reads ‘My laser Kittens destroy you’ is most definitely onto a good thing), tries to achieve something akin to crossing ‘The Last of the Mohicans’ (92) with ’28 Days Later’ (02), and completely fails. Teenage girls might enjoy this, but very doubtful anyone else will – disappointing effort from ‘The Last King of Scotland’ (06) and ‘Touching the Void’ (03) director Kevin Macdonald.

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