‘The End We Start From’: Toronto Review

Dir: Mahalia Belo. UK. 2023. 102 mins.

The pregnancy bubble – that hormonal insulating layer that filters out the rest of the world – might explain why the Woman (Jodie Comer) is slow to pick up on the gravity of the situation. And then there’s the fact that giving birth can feel like getting caught in the throes of an unfolding natural disaster even at the best of times. But it gradually dawns on her – she has a newborn baby. And the world as she knew it has vanished. She and her partner (Joel Fry) are homeless – their London home flooded along with much of the rest of the country – and society and the entire infrastructure is collapsing around them. Adapted by Alice Birch from a novel by Megan Hunter, this is an intimate, unconventional and assured first feature from former Screen Star Of Tomorrow Mahalia Belo (2014) – a post-apocalyptic drama that uses an environmental catastrophe as a lens through which to observe female kinship and motherhood.

’A film that taps into an atavistic, instinctual primal quality that characterises new motherhood’

Although not quite as unremittingly bleak as something like The Road, this is, nonetheless, uncomfortable viewing, particularly as it premieres just days after parts of Greece were deluged by nearly three years worth of average rainfall in the space of 12 hours. Although the focus of the picture is on individual human stories, the wider global relevance is stark. Still, the presence of the always magnetic Comer, on phenomenal form, plus the note of cautious hope that accompanies the film’s ultimate message of endurance, should recommend it to arthouse audiences. The film will have its European premiere at the BFI London Film Festival, and Paramount’s Republic Pictures have slated it for release in North America in early December. Signature Entertainment will distribute in the UK, with the date as yet unconfirmed.

The waters are already rising when we first meet the Woman – Belo places a camera inside a running bath, the lens is gradually submerged as she chats to her husband, oblivious to the storm that rages outside. More potent imagery comes shortly afterwards, with the onset of labour accompanied by the traditional “waters breaking” shot – but in this case, it’s the flood water breaching the family home. These flipped expectations and mirror images persist throughout the film, cleverly capturing the sense of disengagement from the rest of the world that characterises late-stage pregnancy and the immediate aftermath of giving birth.

Without a home to return to, the couple leave the war zone of a hospital and join the gridlock of city dwellers attempting to escape the rising waters. They are among the lucky ones: his parents have a place in the country, and a well-stocked larder. But as the crisis unfolds, the food runs out and life becomes increasingly precarious. The Woman and her now three-month-old baby take the difficult decision to move to a government-run camp. The man, however, must fend for himself. There, she makes a friend – another young mother (Katherine Waterston), whose humour and solidarity provides a lifeline for the Woman, and a direction going forward. When life at the camp becomes untenable, they leave together, intending to join a commune on an island.

The horrors and the threats are real, but there’s something almost dreamlike at times in the way the story unfolds. The Woman’s fierce love for her child is so all-consuming that it sometimes warps her perception of the world around her. The camera flips, the image inverts and Anna Meredith’s pulsing electronic score throbs like an adrenalised rush of blood to the brain. This is a story of survival, but it is by no means typical of the genre – instead it is sensory, tactile; a film that taps into an atavistic, instinctual primal quality that characterises new motherhood.