How I Live Now

"Held together by a forceful performance from Saoirse Ronan... makes up in emotional immediacy what it lacks in broad dramatic sweep."

"An Arab Spring-y allegory with kissing cousins and a divine countryside setting, Kevin Macdonald's fourth narrative film is an awkward oddity, as uncomfortable in its own skin as its protagonist."

"There's not really enough here to get teenage girls totes emosh. Not enough to sigh and swoon over."

"[Director] Macdonald struggles to balance a nebulous narrative on tentpole moments of rich emotional resonance."

"I enjoyed the post-apocalyptic anxiety, a bit like Survivors on 70s TV: a world of farmhouses, Land Rovers and underground bunkers."

"As Daisy's situation worsens, she becomes progressively less clear, specific, and interesting as a character, and flattens into a generic striver, except when she's being nasty."

"Ronan is almost always worth watching, but not especially in this drippy outing."

"Macdonald's film is a noble stab at bringing Meg Rosoff's YA novel to the screen, which sees Ronan in typically watchable form."