Shadows

“This must be the before!” the sisters whisper excitedly as they examine a photograph found in a box in a forbidden room. It shows a crowd of people apparently involved in some kind of demonstration. There, in among the press of bodies, is a woman whom they recognise as Mother.

Mother (Saskia Reeves) has taught them everything they know. They go out by night, foraging and hunting, to avoid getting daylight on their skin and to steer clear of monsters – the titular shadows – said to roam the place by day. Inhabiting an old, abandoned public building, they grow their own vegetables under UV lights and endlessly recycle their possessions. When they make mistakes, mother is furious, and punishments include the denial of food, but she assures them that she’s only doing what’s necessary to protect them, and she constantly reassures them of her love.

It’s an arrangement which has worked for a long time, but things now are not like they used to be. The girls are growing up, and their childhood daydreams about finding other survivors are turning into concrete plans. Although they’ve been warned not to go beyond the river, they look for ways of sending messages, hoping that somebody will find them. Part of this stems from their developing sexuality – they read romance novels and look at pictures of men in a stolen magazine – but part of it is simply a result of them becoming their own people in a world where mother has always been in control. Alex (Lola Petticrew) begins to talk openly about leaving. Alma (Mia Threapleton), who finds most of her joy in the company of her sister, finds herself torn.

That’s about it. There’s only a handful of routes which this could take and it chooses one of the most obvious ones, which will leave many viewers frustrated after 102 minutes. The premise isn’t altogether convincing and there’s a lot of repetition. It has its moments but they are few and far between. On the plus side, it’s always nice to see teenage actresses get to take on roles where they’re allowed to look like real people, free from glamour, and the sisterly bond convinces. Threapleton is the most impressive, though there’s a strong cameo from a child playing her younger self.

All in all, Shadows feels like a film which seemed like a good idea to people who hadn’t seen much of this type of cinema. One gets the feeling throughout that they think they’re doing something much more original than is really the case, and although the actors are all competent, they don’t deliver strong enough performances to justify retreading such familiar ground. Shadows repeatedly asks its audience to wait for some grand revelation but it can’t live up to its own promise.