The Hush

This middling dystopian thriller from Foster (The Hidden Hours) presents a disturbing near future in which the people of Britain, wracked by climate change, food shortages, Covid, and lockdowns, are dominated by a government relentlessly seeking power through surveillance and population control. London midwife Emma Aitken, a single mother, is exhausted physically and mentally by a dismaying wave of stillbirths when her unmarried 17-year-old daughter, Lainey, discovers she’s pregnant. Emma and Lainey each struggle to overcome their lethal environment, while the government passes restrictive laws to closely monitor ordinary citizens. As crises mount and Lainey is threatened by Liam, a schoolmate whose father is a powerful politician, she turns for support to her loyal girlfriend and Emma’s mother, a human rights lawyer. Meanwhile, Emma contends with toxic hospital staff and regulations, and bereaved mothers she cannot help. Unfortunately, sisterhood triumphs too easily against conventionally dastardly villains, and the action builds to a facile denouement. The execution doesn’t do justice to the concept of this dystopian what if. Agent: Tara Wynne, Curtis Brown (Australia). (Nov.)