How I Live Now Is the Post-Apocalyptic Teenage Love Story We Deserve

We live in an age of cultural morbidity, which is exactly why we’re getting yet another post-apocalyptic fantasy/nightmare movie — to let us all indulge our cynicism towards the human race. How I Live Now, based on Meg Rosoff’s 2004 YA novel about a Manhattanite teenager who goes to live on a remote English farm during the outbreak of World War III: Nuclear Boogaloo, stars Saoirse Ronan and looks…pretty compelling, actually.

This seems like the sort of clubhouse fantasy — complete with slumber parties, coming-of-age-heavy-petting, and distant nuclear explosions — that will make you want to find a sturdy tree, and build a cozy fort out of scrap lumber, you know, just a tiny place where you can read comics, drink Coke, and never grow old.