HOW I LIVE NOW Blu-Ray Review

How I Live Now is a beautifully twisted film about the loss of innocence and the redeeming power of love. Saoirse Ronan stars as a troubled teen named Daisy who is sent to live with her aunt and cousins in the UK after her father remarries and has another child. While Daisy, a terrifically abrasive introvert, struggles with her own personal laundry list of psychological issues, stemming from the loss of her mother, she begins to accept the carefree lifestyle that her cousins have embraced in the English countryside.

When an ambiguous conflict breaks out in Europe (undisclosed in the vein of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road), Daisy’s aunt, vaguely described as a government analyst of some sort, must leave for parts unknown. Her three children plus Daisy are left alone. A nuclear disaster takes place in London. Chaos erupts. Anarchy ensues. The whole nine yards.

Daisy and her cousins manage to escape the earliest waves of violence by remaining in their idyllic country world, separate from reality that has been hijacked by a third world war. In spite of everything, Daisy’s walls begin to crumble as she finds herself falling in love – with her eldest cousin, Edmund (George MacKay). This is the point in the film where the story begins to break down a bit. If you can move past the family ties and focus on the external factors pushing these two together, then the rest of the film just becomes ensconced in a journey of tragedy swallowed by a thread of hope.

The end of the film is decidedly subjective. Still filled with a sense of overwhelming emptiness from the sheer devastation of recent events, Daisy chooses to be content with the simplicity of being home.

The How I Live Now blu-ray comes complete with the following special features:

• Interviews: Cast, Director, Producers, and Author
• Behind the Scenes Comparisons
• Deleted Scenes
• Making of How I Live Now
• AXS TV: A Look at How I Live Now
• Theatrical Trailer

The interviews and behind the scenes featurettes give viewers something extra to grasp onto besides the story itself. Ronan and the rest of the cast are extremely verbal about the film and leave little to the imagination in terms of their motivation.

Besides the bonus features, How I Live Now is presented in standard 1080p high definition along with Dolby 5.1 master audio. The film looks and sounds decent, without adding anything special to the mix.

If you like a film that doesn’t necessarily follow the cookie cutter Hollywood motif, How I Live Now might be right up your alley.