The Girl with All the Gifts (film)

In the near future, humanity has been ravaged by a disease caused by a parasitic fungus transmitted by bodily fluids. The infected have turned into fast, mindless zombies, called "hungries.” Mankind's only hope is a small group of hybrid second-generation children who crave living flesh, but retain the ability to think and learn.

The children are imprisoned by a group of soldiers led by Firefly Eddie Parks, and go to school at an army base in the Home Counties, where they are experimented on by Dr. Caroline Caldwell. Helen Justineau is responsible for educating and studying the children. Among them is an exceptional girl named Melanie, who Helen grows particularly close to, thus forming a special bond.

When the base is overrun by hungries and the operating lab is breached, Melanie escapes and wanders outside, where soldiers are being violently attacked. Melanie and Helen board an escaping truck with Caldwell, and two surviving soldiers, Gallagher and Dillon. Melanie is restrained and muzzled to prevent her from biting the others. Dillon is killed when hungries attack as the group stops for water, and the truck is disabled.

The group reaches London by foot and makes their way through a swarm of dormant hungries using a "blocker" gel that masks their scent, rendering them largely invisible. They take shelter in an abandoned hospital for the night. Caldwell reveals that second-generation hungries were discovered after newborns killed their infected mothers by burrowing out of the womb.

In the morning, the group realises they have been surrounded by hungries. Melanie, as a second-generation hungry, is ignored by the hungries. She eats a stray cat and then explores abandoned houses. She helps the group by leading the hungries away with a stray dog so the group can escape.

As they progress through London, they come across piles of infected bodies encircling the BT Tower, which has been overgrown by a massive fungal growth. Caldwell explains that the growth contains seed pods which, if released, could release airborne spores that would end mankind. They take shelter in an abandoned mobile laboratory that was sent into the city earlier by the military authorities.

Caldwell, injured and dying of sepsis, reasons that she can save the human race by sacrificing Melanie to complete her vaccine research in the lab. As the group runs out of food, Gallagher ventures into the city on a supply run, but is killed by a tribe of feral hungry children who have learned to track uninfected people, despite the blocker gel. When the rest of the group is surrounded by the feral children, Melanie kills the leader with a bat. The remaining children back off, allowing them to escape.

Caldwell attempts to dissect Melanie upon the group's return to the lab, imploring her to sacrifice herself for Justineau. Melanie comes to the realisation that she is not an experiment and that her kind, human-zombie hybrids, will be the future of the world. She escapes and sets the towering seed-pod structure alight, causing it to release an immense cloud of spores. Caldwell chases after her, but is killed by the tribe of children.

Parks leaves the lab in search of Melanie, but becomes infected by the spores. He hands Melanie his gun and tearfully asks her to shoot him, as he does not want to turn into a hungry. Melanie obliges and shoots Parks as he is about to turn. In the lab, Justineau stands inside the sealed door, watching the spores fall.

The film ends with a tearful Justineau, safe but confined to the sealed mobile lab due to the lethal environment. Outside, the hybrid children of the army base, along with the feral children, sit together, kept sternly in place by Melanie. Justineau speaks through a microphone, once again educating them.[4][5]

The book and film were re-written in tandem, with Carey also writing the screenplay. Colm McCarthy came aboard as director for his first major feature.[6] The movie was originally titled She Who Brings Gifts but was later retitled, matching the book.[7]

On 23 March 2015, casting was announced for the film.[8] Of whether or not the film would be similar to the novel, Carey stated:[9]

We went a slightly different way in the movie, especially when it came to point of view. Where the novel moves between the five main characters and lets us see what’s going on in all of their heads, the movie sticks with Melanie all the way. And there are no Junkers in the movie. The base falls to a hungry attack. But it’s a case of two different paths through the same narrative space. The ending is absolutely faithful to the book.

— M.R. Carey, in an interview with Mom Advice[9]

Half of the film's £4 million budget came from the BFI Film Fund and Creative England, making it the biggest investment that the latter had ever made and one of the largest ever for the BFI.

The Girl with All the Gifts received positive reviews from critics. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 86%, based on 126 reviews, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "The Girl with All the Gifts grapples with thought-provoking questions without skimping on the scares—and finds a few fresh wrinkles in the well-worn zombie horror genre along the way".[14] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 67 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[15]

Dave Robinson of Crash Landed described the film as a "tense and intriguing experience" noting that whilst its final act "goes a little off the reservation" the performance of lead Sennia Nanua will "make you both care [for her] and simultaneously feel on edge" along with the "smart choices" in the CGI department to create a "grounded feel" that offers clear similarities to 28 Days Later [16]

• The Girl with All the Gifts at IMDb 
• The Girl with All the Gifts at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Girl with All the Gifts at Metacritic
• The Girl with All the Gifts at AllMovie (rating 3.5/5)
• The Girl with All the Gifts at the TCM Movie Database