WiHM 2018 - The Girl With All the Gifts
Feb. 17th, 2018 10:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glitter_n_goreHappy Black Panther Weekend!
I went last night and it was a million times better than I even expected it to be, and my expectations were HIGH. All my fellow film geeks have been talking about Black Panther for what feels like eons. This is a historic moment in cinema. Along with last year's Get Out and the still upcoming A Wrinkle In Time, black protagonists are finally getting a significant spotlight in mainstream cinema. It's a drop in a very large, very overdue bucket, but it's a step in the right direction.
One of the horror and sci-fi films with black protagonists from last year that you may have missed, along with The Transfiguration, Sleight, and It Comes At Night, is one of the finest zombie movies out there, and a stunningly faithful adaptation to boot: The Girl With All the Gifts.
I am going to spoil a few things here, so tread carefully if you haven't seen it yet.
Melanie (Sennia Nanua) is a "hungry." A new breed of zombie that resulted from people who were pregnant when a deadly fungus hit, and had children already affected but still in control of most of their mental faculties. (Yes, they call the zombies "hungries" here and it's a little weird, but never mind.) These uniquely lucid half-zombies are housed in a research facility under tight protocols, given a rudimentary education, and sometimes taken away for gruesome experiments. The ultimate goal is to use them to find some kind of cure and prevent the human race from facing total extinction. Then eventually, because this is a zombie movie and this is how things go, something goes wrong and they have to escape the facility.
I am amazed that this movie didn’t get more attention. It was in theaters, but not for long, and seemed to disappear without much of a reaction. One especially interesting detail about this adaptation is that Melanie was not a black girl in the original novel by M. R. Carey. The same thing is happening with A Wrinkle In Time, by the way, and it's one of those changes that might not seem like a big deal on the surface, but transforms the story in a really fascinating way.
Keep in mind we stick with Melanie’s point of view throughout this story, and that her big, coming-of-age moment isn’t just breaking free of the facility, but making her first kill. And it’s a motivated kill, driven not by hunger or rage but by a sense of justice. She’s trying to save someone she cares about, but her method of doing so makes her a threat. It’s worth mentioning that almost all the power players in this story are women, from the obsessed doctor played by Glenn Close to the compassionate teacher played by Gemma Arterton. We could do with a lot more of these apocalypse scenarios where the women are not only central, but allowed to be flawed, messy, and complicated. (Looks like Annihilation is going to hit that mark, so fingers crossed!)
As the zombie infection spreads, Melanie fights to be seen as anything more than a monster, and starts to think about who she really is and where she truly belongs. She can’t fit in with this team of scientists and soldiers who don’t trust her, but she also can’t survive without their help . . . or can she? And that’s the real question that starts to bubble to the surface. The “what if” in this story isn’t “What if zombies destroyed the entire human race?” but “What if the zombies aren’t the real monsters here?” Melanie, and the audience, starts to look away from the humans who kept her prisoner for her own salvation.
The most powerful moment comes when the soldier, played by Paddy Considine, starts to lament the end of the world as he knows it. He believes not just his life, but all life, is over because of this plague. Melanie tells him, “It’s not over. It just isn’t yours anymore.” That was a bold statement in the book already. Here, it’s even more so. See this movie as soon as you can. You don’t know what you’re missing.
Next time: Teeth.
I went last night and it was a million times better than I even expected it to be, and my expectations were HIGH. All my fellow film geeks have been talking about Black Panther for what feels like eons. This is a historic moment in cinema. Along with last year's Get Out and the still upcoming A Wrinkle In Time, black protagonists are finally getting a significant spotlight in mainstream cinema. It's a drop in a very large, very overdue bucket, but it's a step in the right direction.
One of the horror and sci-fi films with black protagonists from last year that you may have missed, along with The Transfiguration, Sleight, and It Comes At Night, is one of the finest zombie movies out there, and a stunningly faithful adaptation to boot: The Girl With All the Gifts.
I am going to spoil a few things here, so tread carefully if you haven't seen it yet.
Melanie (Sennia Nanua) is a "hungry." A new breed of zombie that resulted from people who were pregnant when a deadly fungus hit, and had children already affected but still in control of most of their mental faculties. (Yes, they call the zombies "hungries" here and it's a little weird, but never mind.) These uniquely lucid half-zombies are housed in a research facility under tight protocols, given a rudimentary education, and sometimes taken away for gruesome experiments. The ultimate goal is to use them to find some kind of cure and prevent the human race from facing total extinction. Then eventually, because this is a zombie movie and this is how things go, something goes wrong and they have to escape the facility.
I am amazed that this movie didn’t get more attention. It was in theaters, but not for long, and seemed to disappear without much of a reaction. One especially interesting detail about this adaptation is that Melanie was not a black girl in the original novel by M. R. Carey. The same thing is happening with A Wrinkle In Time, by the way, and it's one of those changes that might not seem like a big deal on the surface, but transforms the story in a really fascinating way.
Keep in mind we stick with Melanie’s point of view throughout this story, and that her big, coming-of-age moment isn’t just breaking free of the facility, but making her first kill. And it’s a motivated kill, driven not by hunger or rage but by a sense of justice. She’s trying to save someone she cares about, but her method of doing so makes her a threat. It’s worth mentioning that almost all the power players in this story are women, from the obsessed doctor played by Glenn Close to the compassionate teacher played by Gemma Arterton. We could do with a lot more of these apocalypse scenarios where the women are not only central, but allowed to be flawed, messy, and complicated. (Looks like Annihilation is going to hit that mark, so fingers crossed!)
As the zombie infection spreads, Melanie fights to be seen as anything more than a monster, and starts to think about who she really is and where she truly belongs. She can’t fit in with this team of scientists and soldiers who don’t trust her, but she also can’t survive without their help . . . or can she? And that’s the real question that starts to bubble to the surface. The “what if” in this story isn’t “What if zombies destroyed the entire human race?” but “What if the zombies aren’t the real monsters here?” Melanie, and the audience, starts to look away from the humans who kept her prisoner for her own salvation.
The most powerful moment comes when the soldier, played by Paddy Considine, starts to lament the end of the world as he knows it. He believes not just his life, but all life, is over because of this plague. Melanie tells him, “It’s not over. It just isn’t yours anymore.” That was a bold statement in the book already. Here, it’s even more so. See this movie as soon as you can. You don’t know what you’re missing.
Next time: Teeth.