In The End We Start From, the long-promised floods have arrived on the shores of Britain, and the country has fallen into catastrophe. In the midst of the rising waters, Jodie Comer’s unnamed hero gives birth - literally in the midst, her windows smashed in by thunderous waves the moment she goes into labour - thus kick-starting a cross-country trek out of the city and away from the destruction, with nothing but her newborn strapped to her back. It’s directed by Mahalia Belo, best known for her solid British TV work, and although this is technically her debut feature, her extensive television experience can be felt on the screen. She works the camera confidently, capturing the shaky realism and human emotion that can and will be found embedded within the horror of the apocalypse. 

But the film lives or dies on its central performance. And with Jodie Comer in the lead role, the film, of course, lives. Comer has conquered both television and theatre since she first erupted into our screens in Killing Eve, but she’s only just beginning to stretch her legs in the world of film. Comer feels like a movie star and she navigates the screen like a movie star. There’s a magnetism to her performance, a genuine electricity whenever she’s on the screen held only by the truest and best actors. It’s her performance that holds the film together, and that’s very much by design. Like the poetic, verbose novel upon which the film is based, the plot is light. This is a film which captures a mood and a feeling above anything else, and seeks simply to tell the tale of one woman and her journey.

But what little plot the film does contain within it is compelling and important. It paints an entirely realistic and human depiction of climate change, the floods seen only through clips on the news or the cries of dying patients in the hospital ward down the hall from Comer’s pregnant protagonist. Characters recall what they’ve seen to each other, rumours and whispers spreading from person to person of the destruction, but never seen in all of their devastating glory. There’s no The Day After Tomorrow style CGI shots to be found in The End We Start From - which is crushingly realistic. This is how it will be when the floods come. We’ll hear them before we see them. And if you are close enough to see them, then there won’t be anyone to tell. 

But as the film painstakingly depicts, for those who survive the initial onslaught of rising sea levels, it won’t be the water that kills them, but starvation. When the floods come, money and jewels and wealth instantaneously become worthless. It’s food, or what’s left of it, that becomes the new currency. When the floods come, a loaf of bread will drive people to murder. 

You’ll leave the auditorium after watching The End We Start From feeling devastated, uplifted, inspired, scared. In abandoning the unimaginable scale of the climate crisis, and instead focusing entirely on one woman and her struggle, the effect of the impending floods has never felt larger. It’s an unsettling glimpse into the future, and soon each and everyone of us will have our own story to tell, our very own insular version of The End We Start From - and that’s the scariest thing of all.