Divergent has been compared to The Hunger Games since the film’s announcement. And it’s no wonder why. Both stories feature strong female protagonists in dystopian future-worlds, where a supreme entity acts as end-all-be-all. I, personally, favor Shaileene Woodley’s performance as fearless Tris over Jennifer Lawrence’s blah performance as Katniss. I don’t entirely blame her for the uninteresting performance; an actor can only do so much with what they’re given and The Hunger Games franchise suffers from bad casting to begin with.
What both films boast is a big budget, built-in audiences from bestselling novels, and popular lead actresses. With films like The Giver and The Maze Runner set to make millions at the box office come their release dates, our run of female protagonists might be on the decline. But here’s a film you’ll probably like, if you’re looking for more strong young women as the heroes of their own stories.
The film is 2013’s How I Live Now, based on the novel by Meg Rosoff, and stars Hanna and Atonement actress Saoirse Ronan. Like its fellows, the film also tracks a teenage girl as she fights her way through a war-torn country. But in this case the fight is much more subtle and her war is not with some all-powerful government body (talking at you evil Kate Winslet and evil Donald Sutherland). Ronan plays Daisy, an American staying with relatives in Great Britain when a third world war breaks out. When she is separated from her relatives by soldiers, Daisy has to pluck up her courage and find her way back home.
What’s nice about How I Live Now is that it doesn’t split characters into good and bad categories, or go to the lengths of huge scale battles and effects-fests to convey the world that it has built. Indeed, we only get glimpses into the machinations that have brought us to the point of the war. The film is much more focused on Daisy’s journey from a tense stuck-up teenager to a world-weary woman. Ronan is, in my opinion, a much stronger actress in her role than Woodley or Lawrence. The other kids in the film also do an amazing job, including The Impossible’s Tom Holland.
How I Live Now is streaming on Netflix. I recommend it wholeheartedly.