The Survivalist – Film Review by Pierce McDonough

Written and Directed by Stephen Fingleton

Starring Martin McCann, Mia Goth, Olwen Fouéré

The Survivalist makes its nihilistic intentions clear from the outset as we see our unnamed protagonist tear the front page from a bible and burn it. There’s no hope in this post-apocalyptic dystopia. There’s only survival.

We are given no context other than a simple graph, a red line representing the population and a blue line representing oil production. Both rise parallel to one another, creeping along the black screen, before plummeting drastically.

The protagonist lives alone in a cabin hidden in a forest, isolating himself from any other survivors because no one can be trusted. No melancholic score signals his loneliness, no flashbacks show us who he once was. Rather minimalist filmmaking presents him matter of factly as he tends his garden and buries dead intruders’ bodies. It’s raw, reminiscent of a Cormac McCarthy novel.

Martin McCann plays him as more an animal than a man, his primitive desire to survive stripping him of humanity. Staying alive this long has hardened him as he appears incapable of emotions and allergic to companionship. He’s not exactly delighted when Kathryn and her teenage daughter, Milja show up in need of board and lodging. Pleasantries aren’t exchanged among these three survivors as every conversation is one of pragmatic need concerning their survival. They don’t waste words, speaking almost exclusively in grunts and monosyllables.

Sex is just another bargaining chip in this brutal, emotionless world as Kathryn offers her daughter to the protagonist in exchange for food. They form a tense alliance, helping each other but remaining distrustful, afraid to get to close.

While post-apocalyptic dystopias are frequently visited in cinema, The Survivalist proves itself to be a worthy, if not entirely distinct, addition. It’s unflinching and honest in its imagining of a dystopian world, still managing to find the tiniest sliver of hope in this bleak setting.