How I Live Now (R)
BFI; IMDb; Magnolia Pictures; Protagonist Pictures; Rotten Tomatoes; TV Tropes; Wikipedia
streaming sites: Amazon; Google Play; iTunes; Max; Vudu; YouTube

This came out in 2013, but I didn't see it until 2018. I guess the main reason I wanted to see it was because it stars Saoirse Ronan. I probably had a better idea of what it was about when I first heard of it, but by the time I watched it, I didn't really remember anything about it, like not even what genre it was supposed to be. While watching it, I thought I'd call it a war movie, but when I looked at that section of my reviews, I saw that I had decided not to include fictional wars. And the war in this movie is definitely fictional. I'm not quite sure when it's set, but it doesn't seem like it could be more than a few years after the time it was made. (It's based on a book from 2004, which I haven't read. So really, the movie could have even been set before it was made, and still be the near future, from the book's perspective. I dunno.) Anyway... I also thought it might have been a dystopian movie, but I think that's a bit of a stretch. Or a sci-fi/paranormal movie. Like, we occasionally hear the thoughts of Ronan's character, Daisy, which seem very jumbled, more like intrusive thoughts than her own thoughts. And I wondered if there might be some paranormal explanation, like she was telepathic or something. There's also a scene where another character, Eddie, seems to have the ability to communicate with animals, or something. And it seemed to me like he suggested he and Daisy were similar, which I took to mean they both had special abilities. However, that was never followed up on in any way, and was certainly never made explicit. It really just seemed like both things were sort of thrown into the story and then dropped. So anyway, I was left thinking it's basically just a drama. However, when I went to write my review, I found I had put the movie on my list of "coming of age" movies I wanted to see, probably because Wikipedia included that as a category for the movie. So... that's what I'm going with.

Well, Daisy is an American teenager, who goes to England to spend the summer with her cousins and her aunt Penn. I gather Penn is some sort of diplomat, or something, and since it seems like World War III is about to start, she's very busy with work, and almost never around. Mostly, the kids look after themselves. Daisy's oldest cousin is Eddie. Then there's Isaac (Tom Holland), and the youngest is a girl named Piper. The kids also have a friend named Joe, who has been living with them. At first, Daisy is rather moody, and not interested in spending any time with anyone. But she does come around eventually. She also falls in love with Eddie, and the two of them start having sex (which I find kind of squicky, what with their being cousins, and all). Eventually, the war comes closer, and Daisy's father sends someone to deliver a plane ticket for her to return to America. But she decides to stay with her cousins. Soon after that, the British Army evacuates everyone, splitting up the boys and girls. Daisy and Piper are sent to live together in a foster home, but eventually they run away, and start the long hike back to their house, hoping to find the others there.

Aside from that, I don't want to divulge any of what happens. I'll just say it's mostly a very grim movie. I thought it was good, but not great, and definitely not something I want to watch again.