How I Live Now

With films such as State of Play and The Last King of Scotland to his name, director Kevin Macdonald obviously has a flair for matching realism with adrenaline-pumping thrills. Here, his vision of England in a nuclear crisis feels even more effective because he dresses it in the conventions of a growing-pains drama. Saoirse Ronan stars as Daisy, a moody American teenager who is summering with her English cousins in a bucolic paradise slightly marred by barbed wire fences and the military drones roaring overhead. She has even fallen in love with the eldest boy Eddie (George MacKay). It's at this point that a literal bombshell drops. The mood changes drastically and Daisy is required to abandon her cool posing and help Eddie's sister (Harley Bird) to get back home. Rather than demonstrating triumph over adversity, it becomes increasingly certain that Daisy is misguided in her attempts and that the journey is becoming an unhealthy obsession. The effect is highlighted by Macdonald who illustrates the journey with examples of the ways in which modern life has distanced Daisy from the natural world.