The End We Start From: a new mother faces climate catastrophe

The End We Start From is a survival drama directed by Mahalio Belo based on a book written by Megan Hunter. It’s a film that drops the Hollywood special effects and centres on connection, survival and desperation as climate change causes society to fall apart.

Watching the first scene instantly draws you into chaos.

When there is no sense of normal, people can change their attitudes and behaviour. They can become wild survivalists or kind and compassionate to strangers. Together, these depict how humans can react to crises: from self-preservation to altruism. 

We meet an unnamed woman (played by Jodie Comer) who is heavily pregnant. Her waters break, whilst heavy rain causes widespread flooding across London, creating a parallel between the two events. 

After giving birth in a hospital, she and her husband, R (Joel Fry), name their son Zeb. However, she can’t return home and has to leave the city, as the capital and most of England are underwater.

R’s parents (Nina Sosanya and Mark Strong) live in a village. Their house is prepared with supplies and food, so they all take sanctuary there. Only for resources to run low, forcing the family to go on the road, stumbling onto a government shelter. 

How do everyday people navigate leaving their life behind while overcoming difficulties due to extreme weather? Here, the film offers social commentary on climate change-induced displacement and its emotional impacts in a not-so-distant future.

Comer is the standout in this movie; her performance as lead actor is excellent. As the unnamed woman, she embraces motherhood and develops a beautiful, if at times trying, bond with her baby Zeb, despite the dire situation. 

She portrays a fierce mother, determined to protect her child, throughout the film. In distress, she is confused and frustrated by the state of the country, while also learning to be a parent, loving and nurturing her newborn. 

She grieves her life before the floods, desperate for her son to grow up in that world, but tries to make the most of every moment they share. Comer, by moving between misery and hope, gives a complex performance of a woman entering motherhood for the first time during adversity. 

The movie also touches on the beauty of friendship and connecting with strangers in hard times. In particular, our unnamed woman and a young woman credited as O (Katherine Waterson) have a few deep, thoughtful conversations as they bond over their experiences as mothers who have left everything behind. 

They open up to each other about their shock and trauma and try to make the most of the time they share based on a platonic connection. It's heartwarming in light of the disastrous circumstances. 

The End We Start From is slow-paced and puts a mother and her baby at the centre, to make the effects of catastrophic weather feel personal. 

Rather than explicitly educating about the climate crisis, it prompts thinking about the fragility of the characters' lives and how quickly they can change.

The aim of the film is to alert you to the state of our planet, not simply scare you about the future. 

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