This movie will always be notable for being a pandemic film that came out right before the pandemic. It’s got a deceptively simple plot and a slow crawl of an arc, which departs from the usual in the survivalist dystopian film genre as it has developed in the past ten years. The Guardian put together a collection of clips a few years back that might be worth looking at for a visual compendium of some of the bigger dystopic blockbusters in film.
The movie reminds me a bit of Z for Zachariah (2015), the YA fiction book that was adapted into a movie not too long ago. The movie really ought to have done better for itself financially considering its completely loaded cast.
Before the Fire is a game of atmosphere-building. It’s about the small touches, the visual details of farming, small towns, cocking a gun, dressing a wound. I can’t help but cringe internally when I imagine how many times someone must have thrown around the adjective “Odyssean,” while describing what happens in the plot of this movie. Too much of the second act is about a failed damsel rescue. The ending is strangely dismal–and maybe there’s a place for dismal in the early moments of 2020 when this film first came out, but on the other side of this pandemic, it really doesn’t feel like the most creative tone to strike.
WNYC’s On The Media does a periodic rundown of dystopian literature and the purpose it serves in pop culture. Their most recent episode is worth a listen before or after you see this eminently watchable film.
