28 Days Later opens with a montage of collective violence. Riots, police brutality, people on fire, mobs running through the streets, hung bodies. It’s shocking, sad, horrifying. The camera zooms out to reveal a multitude of monitors broadcasting these scenes of vitriol, of rage. A chimpanzee strapped to a table observes, against its will, all of this. The sensors attached to its skull tell us this is a science experiment. We can assume the rest: this is a test to see the emotional and cognitive impact extreme violence has on an individual.
Theme-driven narratives often work through oppositions. What does that mean? If a story introduces a main character who is lonely, you can probably expect a second character who is incredibly social. If one character is successful, another won’t be. If one character is a hero, another will be a villain. If one community is prosperous, they’ll be another that’s poor.
Sometimes one character will embody both dichotomies. For example, in Blade Runner, Deckard starts off thinking replicants are soulless, but, by the end, he believes they have souls. The opposition isn’t split between two characters but contained within the one and their arc over the course of the film. So to go back to our previous example, instead of having one character who is lonely and another who is social, the lonely character, over the course of the story, would simply try to be more social and we’d see what their life is like in one state versus the other.
With that in mind, can you guess what the oppositional concept is in 28 Days Later? The violence combined with the chimpanzee points to the idea of animal instinct. We’re witnessing people who have embraced a primal urge, a prehistoric reaction to anger and frustration—physical violence. Opposing our animal instinct is the concept of civilization. It’s a classical philosophical duality that dates back to Plato’s discussion about the soul being both “noble” and “unruly”. And that’s essentially the crux of 28 Days Later.
28 Days Later Themes, Meaning, And Ending Explained
The tension between people at their most primal versus their most civilized. That’s the dominant motif of the film. In this destroyed world full of infected, we see instance after instance of people trying to bring back some form of civilization and the difficulties of that effort. Look at Jim and Selena. Initially, Selena just wants to survive (animal). But her priorities shift to building a life with Jim and Hannah (civilized).
After Mark’s death, the story could have gone in a million different directions. It went with the “Selena and Jim meet Frank and Hannah” subplot because it fit the theme. In the midst of such disarray, Frank’s apartment is the first place that feels almost normal. And that’s where Jim’s able to finally shower, shave, and make himself presentable. He goes from looking ragged, almost feral, to presentable, attractive. His elevated appearance coincides with a stretch of the film that feels warm and domestic. What happens when that domesticity is ruined by Major Henry West and his soldiers? Jim’s appearance devolves—the feral aspects return and he looks more like an infected than an upstanding citizen.
The military mansion is a twisted version of society, a version that appears “noble” but is actually just as unruly and “animal” as the infected. How many people, how many groups, how many nations, convince themselves they’re doing something important when, in reality, it’s anything but? We saw it with the animal rights activists in the beginning. Under the guise of doing the right thing, they ignore every warning and unleash the virus. Same with the soldiers. They believe they’re saving society and that somehow gives them permission to get rid of Jim then have their way with Selena and Hannah.
Ultimately, Jim, Selena, and Hannah create their own kind of utopia. They’re away from danger, safe, with plenty of supplies, happy, taking care of one another. The movie starts in a place of chaos and ends in a place of order.
I would argue that 28 Days Later is making a point about emotion. On two scales: the personal and the societal. Characters who manage their emotions and maintain their nobility find connection, love, and a happy ending. Characters who fail to manage their emotions, who become unruly, lose their way and end up infected or victims of the infected. Look at Frank—his death is the result of him getting angry at a cawing crow. He tries to disrupt the crow by kicking a gate. That kick causes a drop of infected blood to fall into his eye. Had he maintained his composure, managed his emotions, he would have been fine.
Throughout each day of our life, we encounter many metaphorical crows. Do you let your emotion get the better of you and kick the gate or do you have some self control? Are you unruly or noble?
Our brains are quite literally divided. Primitive humans didn’t have a developed prefrontal cortex to regulate the amygdala. They were prone to intense reactions, chaotic emotions akin to wild animals. Intense emotional instability makes community difficult. Imagine if you accidentally bumped into someone at the grocery store and they tried to bite your face and rip your genitals off. The world would be a far scarier place.
That’s why, over eons, evolution selected people who could control those emotions and work together, live together, etc. The prefrontal cortex is the result of that. It gave us the ability to control impulses, socialize, regulate emotions, reason abstractly, and consider issues of morality and empathy.
If you ever feel like you’re two different people, that’s because you are. When your brain has glucose, it fuels the prefrontal cortex. When your brain runs out of glucose, it falls back on the more primitive limbic system and suddenly it’s a battle to control impulses, socialize, regulate emotion, reason, and consider the consequences of our actions. You’ve reverted to a more primal version of yourself.
The divide in mind means a divide in spirit. We’re built to both rage and love. That’s what Plato meant by unruly and noble. This duality affects not only individuals but entire societies. Denmark is, currently, a more “noble” country due to its social stability, equality, and thoughtful politics. It has a frontal lobe vibe. Places like the United States and the UK enjoyed a similar nobility for many years, but, recently, have fallen into a disarray that’s palpable in our politics and thus the populaces. Twitter has essentially become the digital version of the rage virus. News, across mediums, is about headline sensationalism rather than depth of information. Fox, CNN, ESPN, New York Post, The Sun, TMZ all appeal to the amygdala. They want us to feel shock, anger, surprise, because then we’re more likely to click.
So when you think about 28 Days Later, think about yourself. Are you contributing to the anger in the world? Or are you helping to maintain society and civilization? That can be as simple as how you respond to people on social media. Do you immediately tell someone they’re an idiot because they didn’t like a movie you loved? Or do you have a conversation that’s beneficial to both of you?
As fantastic as 28 Days Later is, it’s an incredibly relevant film that has real-world applications to essentially every waking second of your life. Spend an entire day tracking your reactions and behavior. When someone drives 5 MPH under the speed limit causing you to miss a green light and sit at a red light…do you rage or remain calm? If your significant other asks you to help them with something while you’re trying to do something else, will you be noble or unruly?
It’s probably weird to say that 28 Days Later can actually make you a better person, but if you pay attention to what the movie is saying and thus embrace an increased self awareness., it really can transform you.
What I’ve just talked about is, I think, the broader theme. But there are sub themes regarding media, military, and more.
A Cool Detail
Maybe the whole primitive vs. civilized human thing seems like a stretch to you. But think about the introduction of Jim. We see him in a hospital bed. What about the chimp watching all the violence on TV? It’s also in a hospital bed. While we don’t get an exact graphic match between the chimp and Jim, the concept is close enough (especially as we cut from the science lab to the hospital) that it feels like an intentional starting point.
What was the intention? I think they wanted to visually bring attention to the concept of our “evolution” from primate to homosapien. It’s the same idea as Kubrick cutting from the bone to the spaceship in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The chimp is the bone and we’re the ship.
