Danielle Deadwyler’s guide to surviving the famine apocalypse.

The story of “40 Acres” takes place in Post Apocalyptic Canada, when a fungal pandemic, a food chain collapse, and famine has made farmland the most valuable resource and basically made society turn against each other. These farms are what gets threatened by cannibals, and from one stand point, the Freeman family knows how to fight back and they know how to grow their crops and keep things on a balanced diet. And they also have a motto: “Work now, rest when we’re dead.” That’s exactly how I like to keep up my reviewing job alive.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect out of “40 Acres,” when I saw the poster, but once I saw the whole movie, I was able to see the genres it wanted to explore and the characters to come out of them. It’s an impressive film debut for writer/director R.J. Throne, whose background includes music videos for artists like Sean Paul, Neverest, and Shawn Desman, and TV shows like “The Lake,” “Blindspot,” and “Kung Fu.”

This little safe haven is headed by Hailey Freeman (Danielle Deadwyler), an army vet and the descendent of African-American farmers who settled in Rural Canada after the Civil War. Other members here also consist of her eldest son Emanuel (Kataem O’Connor) from a different marriage, and daughters Danis (Jaeda LeBlan) and Cookie (Haile Amare), as well as her new husband Galen (Michael Greyeyes) and his daughter Raine (Leenah Robinson). A blended family surviving in a desolate wasteland.

Hailey is the kind of uptight woman who is always lecturing her family on their manners and survival skills. Some of the members succeed, while others need some work. And that’s no different between her and her rebellious son Emanuel, especially when he takes in an injured survivor named Dawn (Milcania Diaz-Rojas) and hides her in their barn. The real questions for the mother’s anger are can Dawn be trusted and is she who she says she is? How could anyone answer those questions given the circumstances?

“40 Acres” is obviously the better post apocalyptic movie than “The End,” which was a musical set in a lavish home within the salt mines and also about a young woman from a different group. That movie looked great, but didn’t have the right notes to be a classic. This one is no classic because the strict dialogue gets exhausting and not all the characters get their basis, but it does survive the apocalypse thanks to Deadwyler’s searing and memorable performance. You can acknowledge she’s committed to her role based on how she delivers her lines and dispositions, thus allowing her to merge with a woman who knows how to survive such a harsh reality. And I also admire the scenes between O’Connor and Diaz-Rojas, who both seem to know the formula of a stranger coming on a private farm.

Now that I look at it, I was thinking back to one of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s earlier films “Delicatessen,” a French horror comedy about a crazy butcher who murders people for their meat. So, I guess in any genre, people need to somehow get their sustenance. And these people can kill any cannibal that gets in their farm without much trouble. I wonder if they can help the British kill the zombies in “28 Years Later,” but that’s on another level. Maybe let’s just stick to cannibals for the time being.

I think we can agree Deadwyler is a fine actress (with “Till” and “The Harder They Fall” being some examples), and I suppose that’s how I was interested to see “40 Acres.”