By and large, I think it’s fair to say that we watch films to be inspired or entertained: we go to the cinema to be uplifted, or to momentarily escape our humdrum, everyday realities. I’m afraid to say that the film I watched yesterday evening at Peckhamplex did precisely the opposite. Surviving Earth must be one of the most depressing, miserable films I’ve ever seen. It is essentially thee story of one man’s struggle with addiction. We see his descent into depression, estrangement from his daughter, battle with drugs and eventual suicide. It is truly a bleak, dark film, and I frankly left the cinema feeling quite distraught. Things might have been different if the guy was someone you could sympathise with, but to my mind he treated everyone around him so abrasively and appallingly that I felt no pity for him. Of course, I know that, like all art, film has a duty to reveal such realities and not just focus on the uplifting aspects of life; yet Surviving Earth felt overtly bleak and depressing, almost as if it was wallowing in it’s own misery.

Check out what Mark Kermode said about it here.