• Home
  • Longform
    • Defanging the Unthinkable
      more
      View more

      Defanging the Unthinkable

      6 years ago
    • A Fitting, Impressive Goodbye
      more
      View more

      A Fitting, Impressive Goodbye

      6 years ago
    • The Ambivalent, Bittersweet "My Life as a Zucchini"
      more
      View more

      The Ambivalent, Bittersweet "My Life as a Zucchini"

      6 years ago
    • The Complex Morality of "No Country for Old Men"
      more
      View more

      The Complex Morality of "No Country for Old Men"

      6 years ago
  • Interviews
    • A New Way of Telling Love Stories
      more
      View more

      A New Way of Telling Love Stories

      6 years ago
    • Breaking Standards with Julian Rosefeldt of "Manifesto"
      more
      View more

      Breaking Standards with Julian Rosefeldt of "Manifesto"

      6 years ago
    • Indulging Mightily with Alex Ross Perry and the "Golden Exits" Cast
      more
      View more

      Indulging Mightily with Alex Ross Perry and the "Golden Exits" Cast

      6 years ago
    • The Ultimate Meta-Performance: Kate Lyn Sheil on "Kate Plays Christine"
      more
      View more

      The Ultimate Meta-Performance: Kate Lyn Sheil on "Kate Plays Christine"

      7 years ago
  • Critic-At-Large
    • Now Playing: "From Nowhere"
      more
      View more

      Now Playing: "From Nowhere"

      6 years ago
    • Now Playing: "Fifty Shades Darker"
      more
      View more

      Now Playing: "Fifty Shades Darker"

      6 years ago
    • Now Playing: "War on Everyone"
      more
      View more

      Now Playing: "War on Everyone"

      6 years ago
    • Now Playing: "The Salesman"
      more
      View more

      Now Playing: "The Salesman"

      6 years ago
  • Podcast
    • Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 287: "Kundun"
      more
      View more

      Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 287: "Kundun"

      6 years ago
    • Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 286: "Pinocchio"
      more
      View more

      Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 286: "Pinocchio"

      6 years ago
    • Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 285: "That Darn Cat"
      more
      View more

      Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 285: "That Darn Cat"

      6 years ago
    • Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 284: "The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement"
      more
      View more

      Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 284: "The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement"

      6 years ago
Movie Mezzanine
  • Home
  • Longform
    • Defanging the Unthinkable
      more
      View more

      Defanging the Unthinkable

      6 years ago
    • A Fitting, Impressive Goodbye
      more
      View more

      A Fitting, Impressive Goodbye

      6 years ago
    • The Ambivalent, Bittersweet "My Life as a Zucchini"
      more
      View more

      The Ambivalent, Bittersweet "My Life as a Zucchini"

      6 years ago
    • The Complex Morality of "No Country for Old Men"
      more
      View more

      The Complex Morality of "No Country for Old Men"

      6 years ago
  • Interviews
    • A New Way of Telling Love Stories
      more
      View more

      A New Way of Telling Love Stories

      6 years ago
    • Breaking Standards with Julian Rosefeldt of "Manifesto"
      more
      View more

      Breaking Standards with Julian Rosefeldt of "Manifesto"

      6 years ago
    • Indulging Mightily with Alex Ross Perry and the "Golden Exits" Cast
      more
      View more

      Indulging Mightily with Alex Ross Perry and the "Golden Exits" Cast

      6 years ago
    • The Ultimate Meta-Performance: Kate Lyn Sheil on "Kate Plays Christine"
      more
      View more

      The Ultimate Meta-Performance: Kate Lyn Sheil on "Kate Plays Christine"

      7 years ago
  • Critic-At-Large
    • Now Playing: "From Nowhere"
      more
      View more

      Now Playing: "From Nowhere"

      6 years ago
    • Now Playing: "Fifty Shades Darker"
      more
      View more

      Now Playing: "Fifty Shades Darker"

      6 years ago
    • Now Playing: "War on Everyone"
      more
      View more

      Now Playing: "War on Everyone"

      6 years ago
    • Now Playing: "The Salesman"
      more
      View more

      Now Playing: "The Salesman"

      6 years ago
  • Podcast
    • Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 287: "Kundun"
      more
      View more

      Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 287: "Kundun"

      6 years ago
    • Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 286: "Pinocchio"
      more
      View more

      Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 286: "Pinocchio"

      6 years ago
    • Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 285: "That Darn Cat"
      more
      View more

      Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 285: "That Darn Cat"

      6 years ago
    • Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 284: "The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement"
      more
      View more

      Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 284: "The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement"

      6 years ago
  • Home
  • Longform
    • Defanging the Unthinkable
      more
      View more

      Defanging the Unthinkable

      6 years ago
    • A Fitting, Impressive Goodbye
      more
      View more

      A Fitting, Impressive Goodbye

      6 years ago
    • The Ambivalent, Bittersweet "My Life as a Zucchini"
      more
      View more

      The Ambivalent, Bittersweet "My Life as a Zucchini"

      6 years ago
    • The Complex Morality of "No Country for Old Men"
      more
      View more

      The Complex Morality of "No Country for Old Men"

      6 years ago
  • Interviews
    • A New Way of Telling Love Stories
      more
      View more

      A New Way of Telling Love Stories

      6 years ago
    • Breaking Standards with Julian Rosefeldt of "Manifesto"
      more
      View more

      Breaking Standards with Julian Rosefeldt of "Manifesto"

      6 years ago
    • Indulging Mightily with Alex Ross Perry and the "Golden Exits" Cast
      more
      View more

      Indulging Mightily with Alex Ross Perry and the "Golden Exits" Cast

      6 years ago
    • The Ultimate Meta-Performance: Kate Lyn Sheil on "Kate Plays Christine"
      more
      View more

      The Ultimate Meta-Performance: Kate Lyn Sheil on "Kate Plays Christine"

      7 years ago
  • Critic-At-Large
    • Now Playing: "From Nowhere"
      more
      View more

      Now Playing: "From Nowhere"

      6 years ago
    • Now Playing: "Fifty Shades Darker"
      more
      View more

      Now Playing: "Fifty Shades Darker"

      6 years ago
    • Now Playing: "War on Everyone"
      more
      View more

      Now Playing: "War on Everyone"

      6 years ago
    • Now Playing: "The Salesman"
      more
      View more

      Now Playing: "The Salesman"

      6 years ago
  • Podcast
    • Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 287: "Kundun"
      more
      View more

      Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 287: "Kundun"

      6 years ago
    • Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 286: "Pinocchio"
      more
      View more

      Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 286: "Pinocchio"

      6 years ago
    • Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 285: "That Darn Cat"
      more
      View more

      Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 285: "That Darn Cat"

      6 years ago
    • Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 284: "The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement"
      more
      View more

      Mousterpiece Cinema, Episode 284: "The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement"

      6 years ago
Now Playing: “The Girl With All The Gifts”
  • The Feature

Now Playing: “The Girl With All The Gifts”

  • by Mallory Andrews
  • February 24, 2017
  • 2
  • 19856
In this week's critic-at-large column, Mallory Andrews takes a look at not just another zombie movie, "The Girl with All the Gifts."

I’ve grown tired of zombies. With The Walking Dead currently standing as AMC’s most watched show, the sub-genre has been tinkered with to death (un-death?) from straight retellings to comedic reinterpretations to zombified versions of already established properties (like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Afterlife with Archie). With undead fatigue having long set in, I approached The Girl with All the Gifts, the adaptation of the novel of the same name from director Colm McCarthy, with few expectations. McCarthy’s film surprises with a genuinely engaging take on these movie monsters, fusing an apocalyptic zombie flick with the best of the “special child” tropes borrowed from YA fiction.

Taking place sometime after the outbreak of a worldwide fungal infection that renders its human victims into undead flesh-eating monsters (here called “hungries”), The Girl with All the Gifts opens in a heavily armed UK researched facility, where captive zombified children study under the tutelage of a sympathetic school teacher Miss Justineau (Gemma Arterton) and are studied by the calculating Dr. Caldwell (Glenn Close). Caldwell is inching closer to a cure, believing the key to be one of her subjects, Melanie (Sennia Nanua), a preternaturally inquisitive young girl seemingly capable of independent thought outside her unending thirst for blood. When the facility is besieged by a horde of hungries, Caldwell, Justineau, and a coterie of military personnel (led by Paddy Considine) set out, with Melanie in tow.

Where traditionally, zombie hordes have been interpreted as allegories for societal mass consumption, here they’re regarded more philosophically. Before the hungries attack the lab, Caldwell tests Melanie with the concept of Schrodinger’s Cat as a logic conundrum about observable reality (that a cat in a sealed box is both dead and alive, until the box is opened to ascertain the truth). It becomes a dark parallel for Melanie herself, as her monstrous tendencies are somehow able to coexist with her intelligence and growing capacity for compassion; she is both dead and alive at the same time. At the same time, the fate of humanity hangs in a similar state of in-between-ness—the human race faces extinction, yet the existence of Melanie and other hungries like her hints at a different kind of future for the world. The Girl with All the Gifts plays less like a straight guts-and-gore horror film (though there’s plenty of that) and more like thought-provoking science fiction.

However, these virtues are native to the source material. Where the film falters is in McCarthy’s perfunctory direction. Best known for directing for the BBC, including episodes of Sherlock, Doctor Who, and Peaky Blinders, his The Girl with All the Gifts looks like a high-budget TV pilot, snappily moving from plot-point to plot-point through a grimy digital sheen. Thankfully, his heroine is a revelation. Sennia Nanua is endlessly watchable as Melanie. She manages to shine through a Hannibal Lecter-like muzzle, bright without ever becoming annoyingly precocious, creepily ferocious when her animal tendencies take over, and more than a match for Glenn Close’s steely gaze. Her performance is worth the price of a ticket.

Tags
  • 7
  • 8
  • 6
  • 0
  • 0
  • 0
Spotlight
  • The 20 Best French Horror Films Ever

  • Now Playing: "Office Christmas Party"

  • Top 10 Films About Loneliness And Isolation

Mezzanine on Facebook
Mezzanine on Twitter
  • Movie Mezzanine: RT @SamFragoso: Needing some light, I went to see THE FLORIDA PROJECT (again). It's a glorious achievement from Sean Baker. Something worth…
    over a year ago
  • Movie Mezzanine: RT @SamFragoso: Hit & miss #TIFF17 but much love to @Lilfilm and his team. THE FLORIDA PROJECT is a gem. These images keep replaying in my…
    over a year ago
  • Movie Mezzanine: RT @TalkEasyPod: King @TheNormanLear goes over 95 years of life with us this week. A true national treasure. https://t.co/a4AfIk6vBo
    over a year ago
  • Movie Mezzanine: RT @elazic: BLOW-UP screens August 22 6:30pm at Somerset House for @Film4 Summer Screen! My piece on the film's eternal relevance for @Movi…
    over a year ago
  • Movie Mezzanine: RT @sheilakathleen: For Richard Linklater's bday: my essay on Before Sunrise for @MovieMezzanine : https://t.co/WBdMx7v4Sb https://t.co/xS4…
    over a year ago
Follow us @MovieMezzanine
Sponsored by The Critical Press
Newsletter

Related posts

  • JoshSpiegel
14
All Good Things…

All Good Things…

6 years ago
  • MovieMezzanine
10
A Conversation About “Split”

A Conversation About “Split”

6 years ago
  • JustineSmith
11
The Angry Young Woman: On “A Taste of Honey”

The Angry Young Woman: On “A Taste of Honey”

7 years ago

Comments are closed.

About Us

Movie Mezzanine is an online publication dedicated to covering the medium that connects us all, one film at a time. With writers stationed around the globe, we offer a uniquely diverse perspective on cinema, both old and new. To learn more about us, go here.

Spotlight

Putting the Geek to the Plow

Cleantalk Pixel