The Girl with All the Gifts (2016)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Helen Justineau	Gemma Arterton
Sgt Eddie Parks	Paddy Considine
Dr Caroline Caldwell	Glenn Close
Melanie	Sennia Nanua
Dr Selkirk	Anamaria Marinca
Devani	Dominique Tipper
Pvt Kieran Gallagher	Fisayo Akinade
Pvt Dillon	Anthony Welsh

Review

Here comes a post-apocalyptic zombie-film with some novel ideas (although criticized for being snatched from the computer game "The Last of Us") and a cerebral level on par with the previous great film in this genre, 2007's I Am Legend. This film has a more expansive world than Legend, however, and the brilliantly constructed in-medias-res opening deployed by director Colm McCarthy effectively sets the tone. The title character, called Melanie, is played with some bravura by young talent Sennia Nanua, and remains an enigma long enough to make the nerve of the film's first half slide elegantly over into the thematic strength of the second. The film is also notable for its number of strong female characters, with Glenn Close shining in an atypical role for her, which she unsurprisingly completely makes her own. And the ending is both a poetic and pragmatic comment on evolutionism and humanity, giving more food for thought than films in this genre usually does.