"Daisy certainly doesn’t make for delightful viewing in these early scenes but as all teenage girls do, she picks up the moment she lays eyes on her cousin Edmond"

Saorise Ronan (a real rising star) plays hormonal all-American Daisy who’s been shipped off to visit her British relatives.  This warm and bohemian family takes Daisy under their wing despite her red hot, fiery attitude.  

Daisy certainly doesn’t make for delightful viewing in these early scenes but as all teenage girls do, she picks up the moment she lays eyes on her cousin Edmond.  With his tame hawk and cow whispering abilities Daisy falls hook, line and sinker (we’ll forgive this bit of incest) and begins to thaw.  We the audience breathe a sigh of relief as we begin to like our protagonist.  Always useful.

At this early stage of the film, Kevin McDonald’s work appears to be more of a Famous Five re-hash than a WWIII drama, and so Daisy and her English clan enjoy their (soon to be short lived) Blyton-esque idyll. 

Soon though, all hell breaks loose as the mother of the family flies off to Geneva never to return due to her involvement with a war with an unknown country.  Nebulous or what? The ‘kids’ don’t pry into this, choosing instead to gallivant in bales of hay, pets and all refusing to leave their family home as instructed by the government.  The army arrives in a flurry sooner or later and the boys are sent off to cadet camp, the girls to do some potato sorting.  As you do.

The real grit of the film then gets going.  Bonds are formed and getaways planned as the apocalyptic state of affairs sets in.

I say, go see this.  If anything, you may pick up some interesting survival techniques for if/when this sort of thing ever to happen. *touches wood.