How I Live Now
Dir: Kevin Macdonald
2013
**
Kevin Macdonald's How I Live Now is based on the 'young adult' book of the same name written by Meg Rosoff. Now, as far as I can tell, 'young adult' books are quite typically underdeveloped half-ideas based on successful stories that already exist, many being classics. No one can really accuse these books of being copies because they are generally so vague, How I Live Now being a prime example. We don't really know who the good guys are, we don't know who the bad guys are, we don't know why they're being bad but we do know that for some unexplained and no good reason, that we need to back to the house no one really wanted to be at in the first place even though we know it isn't safe. Poorly written and unconvincing puppy love will help us achieve this woefully unrealistic goal. It's fairly hard to review a film where nothing really happens. Interpretive films are good, they make you think but this one isn't trying to do that, it's really just the emperor's new clothes, except it's not new, it's old, very old, and it's stinking the place up somewhat. When I was a young adult I read the classics, that's when you're supposed to read them. You then re-read them 20 years later to remind yourself not to become a complete right-wing twat. I worry about youth, I really do. What saddens me more is that the authors of these rubbish books are people my age looking to make a quick buck at the expense of children's imagination and great works of fiction from long dead geniuses. I'm disappointed in Kevin Macdonald.