Movie Review. The Girl with All the Gifts. Literature & Language Essay

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The Girl with All the Gifts
This 2016 British horror film takes place in a post-apocalyptic era. A strange fungal disease has ravaged humankind, robbing humans of free will and turning them into cannibals. Humanity’s only hope is a group of children who are capable of thinking and learning despite their craving for flesh. These hybrid children were discovered when they burrowed out of the wombs of their infected mothers. The children were then captured and imprisoned to be used for experiments. Among the children, Melanie emerges as an exception. At some point, the army base where the children are imprisoned is overrun, forcing Melanie to escape to the outside world. Here she comes face to face with the infected zombies called hungries, who are on a rampage. Melanie and Hellen protect each other and try to escape. When the hospital in London where Melanie, Hellen, and Caldwell are gets surrounded by the hungries, Melanie offers to distract the hungries so that the others can escape. Caldwell aspires to save the human race by developing a vaccine against the disease. After Melanie sets the infected seed pods ablaze leading to mass infections, Hellen who is in the lab is secure from the infection but effectively imprisoned in the lab. She then takes over the role of educating the hybrid children. The film was adapted from the novel, The Girl with All the Gifts and directed by Colm McCarthy. It stars Sennia Nanua, Glenn Close, Gemma Arterton, and Paddy Considine. Though the film bears all the gory features of a horror movie, it bears several lessons on humanity. This paper will look at the various reviews of the film by different writers.
Helen O'Hara agrees that the film bears several similarities with other zombie movies. The writer goes ahead to compare it with films such as The Last of Us and Threads. However, the writer notes that unlike several other zombie movies, this film brings to the viewer a perspective of morality using the compromised characters. The ever-present conflict between a group and individual needs is explored as well. Though the procedure Caldwell wants to perform on Melanie could save humankind, it might also kill her. Intergenerational mistrust is also deeply explored in the movie. The hybrid children mistrust the adults while the adults are scared of their offspring. Dr Caldwell takes Melanie as a specimen while the soldiers treat her like an enemy (O'Hara).
In another review, Mark Kermode acknowledges the breath of new life that the film ...