The Girl With All The Gifts Ending Explained

The Girl With All the Gifts largely flew under the radar when it was released in 2016, but its ending leaves a lot to unpack. The horror film, based on the novel of the same name by M.R. Carey, takes place in a grim post-apocalyptic future. Zombies, known as hungries, run rampant in this world, thanks to the mass spread of a fungal disease. But there’s a hybrid second generation of young hungries that still feed on humans, while retaining their mental capabilities. These hungries attend a “school” at a military base, where a scientist named Dr. Caldwell studies them in the hopes of finding a cure.

After a group of hungries overrun the school, a gifted young hungry named Melanie leads her captors through London, in hopes to help find a cure for the zombie infection. It’s a dangerous trip, as there’s a horde of hungries at nearly every turn. With The Girl With All the Gifts ending explained the many complex layers of the movie become apparent, showing why it’s so much deeper than many other zombie films.

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Does Dr. Caldwell Find a Cure?

The Ending Of The Girl With All The Gifts Suggests A Cure Won’t Be Found

Caldwell is convinced that Melanie is the key to the vaccine in The Girl With All The Gifts. Unfortunatley though, the doctor was moments away from dissecting Melanie when the hungries broke into their lab. Throughout the rest of the film, Caldwell attempts to convince Melanie to sacrifice herself for the cure. The doctor is convinced that she is incredibly close to having a breakthrough with the vaccine, and that a highly intelligent specimen like Melanie is the missing piece.

By the ending of The Girl With All The Gifts, Melanie almost obliges. However, she changes her mind at the last minute and runs away from Caldwell. The doctor chases her, but is captured and killed by a group of young hungries. Caldwell appeared to be humanity’s best shot at a vaccine. After her death, it’s safe to assume that a cure will never be found.

Why Does Melanie Unleash the Pods?

Melanie Decides That The Uninfected Have Had Their Time

Near the end of The Girl With All The Gifts, the team notices a mass of infected bodies encircling an old tower. Caldwell shares that they have reached the next phase of the disease. Their bodies have become overgrown with the seed pods which contain the disease. There are enough pods that, should they be released, they could infect the remainder of those still spared from the disease.

By the end of The Girl With All The Gifts, Caldwell nearly convinces Melanie to sacrifice herself for the cure. But as she remembers the pods, Melanie decides she doesn’t want to be an experiment. She wants her kind to be the future. Melanie has seen so much cruelty from the uninfected, and sees a brighter future for everyone by simply starting over.

Why Is Helen Spared?

Helen’s Kindness Towards Melanie Saved Her Life

The ending of The Girl With All The Gifts was incredibly bleak, with Melanie passing judgement on all of humanity by choosing to unleash the pods. However, her wrath wasn’t all-encompassing, and she did spare someone who she felt deserved it. While Melanie, overall, has not been treated well by humans, there is one person who always showed her kindness — her teacher, Helen.

Most of the humans at the facility see the young hungries as monsters or specimens. Helen sees them as people. Because of this, Melanie makes an effort to save Helen when she decides to set the tower of infected pods ablaze. The film ends with Helen alone, but perfectly safe, in a sealed medical lab. She continues to teach the young hungries, showing a little glimmer of hope for the future.

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The Real Meaning of The Girl With All The Gifts Ending

The Subversive Zombie Movie Is About Starting Over

Just like the best zombie movies, The Girl With All The Gifts is both about survival and human spirit. People show their true colors when they face the most dire of circumstances. The members of humanity with ill intentions did not survive — only the ones with the purest intentions made it. The Girl With All The Gifts takes a slightly different spin on this trope.

In this film, the world is better off with zombies than with people. Sometimes, starting over is all people can do. The movie uses zombies not as a warning against consumerism or herd-mentality as many other movies, such as those made by genre legend George A. Romero have done. Instead, The Girl With All The Gifts uses the hungries as a metaphor for the youth of the future (which is why so many of them are depicted as children). That is why, in the end, it’s the infected that succeed.

Did The Movie Ending Change Anything From The Book?

One Key Change Stands Out

The Girl With All The Gifts is an adaptation of the novel by M.R. Carey, who also wrote the screenplay for the movie. However, despite the movie version and book version having the same creator, there are some key differences between The Girl With All The Gifts novel and film. Not all of these impact the ending, but they are all interesting. A small difference, for example, is that Melanie and Helen have been swapped when it comes to their race. In the book, it is Helen who is Black, with Melanie as a white child.

A change that does have some impact on The Girl With All The Gifts ending comes with what the movie omitted. In the book, Helen’s story is much more fleshed out. Helen helps the hungries in M.R. Carey’s novel because she was responsible for the accidental death of a child. She didn’t report her crime when it happened, and the guilt is what drives her to ensure Melanie is safe. While this doesn’t change Melanie or Helen’s fate in The Girl With All The Gifts movie, it does lessen the emotional impact of Helen surviving, so the decision to remove this element of her story somewhat makes sense.

The Girl With All the Gifts

A scientist and a teacher living in a dystopian future embark on a journey of survival with a special young girl named Melanie.

Director

Colm McCarthy

Release Date

January 26, 2017

Cast

Sennia Nanua , Fisayo Akinade , Dominique Tipper , Paddy Considine , Anamaria Marinca , Gemma Arterton , Anthony Welsh , Glenn Close

Runtime

111 Minutes