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 How I Live Now 

What grade would you give this film?
A 50%  50%  [ 1 ]
B 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
C 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
D 50%  50%  [ 1 ]
F 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Total votes : 2

 How I Live Now 
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Post How I Live Now
How I Live Now

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How I Live Now is an 2013 British drama film based on the 2004 novel of same name by Meg Rosoff, directed by Kevin Macdonald and script written by Tony Grisoni, Jeremy Brock and Penelope Skinner. The film stars Saoirse Ronan, Tom Holland, Anna Chancellor, George MacKay, Corey Johnson and Sabrina Dickens. It was screened in the Special Presentation section at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.


Sat Nov 09, 2013 12:50 pm
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Post Re: How I Live Now
Though he may not have the type of characteristic and overt style which turns directors into households name, Kevin Macdonald is among the more gifted and interesting film artists of his generation, able to step with ease from the art-house to the studio system and from documentaries (One Day in September, Touching the Void) to narrative features (The Last King of Scotland, State of Play). His latest, How I Live Now, is an end-of-the-world drama which for a while plays as a modern fairy tale before segueing into a more traditional, but still exciting and well-paced story of pursuit and political strife. The films open with troubled American teenager Daisy, played by Saoirse Ronan, coming to England to live for a time with family friends. Their rural farmhouse is a wonder of production design, crowded to the ceiling with artifacts indicating a deep history of fascinating world travels, and Macdonald does not fail to capitalize on the old-world beauty of the building and the pastoral area in which it is situated.

The film can be divided into three distinct parts, and the first focuses on the thorny Daisy's slow embrace of her new situation and the people around her. Predictable, perhaps, but sold through novel use of voice-over (Daisy's thoughts, from eating-disorder anxieties to vicious barbs against her absent father to inward pleas to step outside of her comfort zone, are laid atop one another in disorienting explosions of sound reflective of a teenage mind on the verge of frenzy) and the vivid performance of Ronan, given a rare chance to play a 21st-century teenager who is neither otherworldly nor melancholy and soulful beyond her years, but instead angry and flawed in recognizable ways.

While her step-aunt is away, a nuclear bomb is dropped on London as a third World War begins. The focus of the film remains tightly focused on Daisy, her love interest Edmond, and his siblings as they try to understand events transpiring around the globe from their limited perspective: the power goes out, nuclear ash falls and coats the gardens, etc. This section of the film is unusual, hypnotic, and, in a sinister way, very beautiful, resembling Lord of the Flies by way of Alice in Wonderland as the small group of children have only each other to turn as the distant world tears itself apart, both protected and entombed by the isolation of the farmhouse. Once the military enter How I Live Now, bringing with them martial law, gender divided camps, and the specters of execution and rape, it becomes a more easily understood disciple of 28 Days Later, Children of Men, and other recent films depicting modern society in free fall, but the lead performance by Ronan remains riveting, and there is an admirable refusal to turn away from the grim aspects of warfare and social disorder, rendering this an unusual example of a teen centric film with a relatively hard R rating. One or two conceits which were fine in the novel from which the film is adapted, including the ambiguous nature of the force invading Britain (nationality? political views?), prove a bit frustrating in a cinematic context, but this is still an inventive and worthy example of the post-apocalyptic film.

A-

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Sun Nov 10, 2013 6:49 pm
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Post Re: How I Live Now
Oh, and Harley Bird, who I assume is 10 or 11, gives a terrific and very mature performance, particularly during the demanding third act. One of the best child performances of recent years.

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Mon Nov 11, 2013 1:29 am
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Post 
How I Live Now

Apart from the breathtaking and beautiful English countryside, the closing track, and a few scenes here and there, How I Live Now is pretty empty, stupid and unashamed of its low budget. A Yank bitch arrives in the UK and falls madly in love with her cousin in three days, then nuclear war ensues, so she gets taken away for no good reason, then they try and get back to their farmhouse to live happily ever after, which they do!

It's nonsensical rubbish that favours style over substance. The style is good, and if I was rating that alone, I'd be giving it high B status, but the story is so idiotically told. Soairse Ronan plays a horrible ungrateful bitch that the nice English family should have just told to fuck off back to her own country. It's a love story with underage sex, a 15-year old killing two men, 8-year olds swearing, and children basically living like adults in the adults' absence, with lots of paranioa.

What I believe Kevin McDonald was trying to create was a film where we side with the victims of the invaded country (that country being England - representing the West) only to highlight how bad war is for other countries' innocent civilians (like Iraq and Afghanistan). But there was no pay-off in the final act (or even the credits), so perhaps my theory is not correct. It might have been a better film if it was.

D+

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Tue Feb 04, 2014 11:16 am
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Post Re:
Algren wrote:
A Yank bitch arrives in the UK and falls madly in love with her cousin in three days, then nuclear war ensues, so she gets taken away for no good reason, then they try and get back to their farmhouse to live happily ever after, which they do!

I obviously disagree with your review overall because I believe this is a very strong film, but I posit it particularly deserves at least a bit more credit from you in regard to the ending. The final scene has shades of grey. One of the male cousins is dead, and the surviving one is deeply traumatized, and it indicates his recovery (his emergence from his shell) will be a fairly slow one. So it is not a full-tilt happy ending so much as a relieved and slightly haunted one.

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Tue Feb 04, 2014 12:13 pm
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Post Re: How I Live Now
By that point I didn't really care. The whole film is a little pointless. I'd love to know how Edmond got away from execution at the British Army base when he got his ass kicked by one soldier earlier on.

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Tue Feb 04, 2014 12:40 pm
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Post Re: How I Live Now
One thing I forget to mention earlier was how Edmond and Daisy both have no reservations about sucking each others' blood. They were abslolutely fine about it, as if it was such a normal thing to do, like brushing each others' hair or something. Very stupid. Let's hope one of them doesn't have AIDs.

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Wed Feb 05, 2014 8:41 am
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