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Personal tensions fuel survival tale
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A powder-keg plot setup triggers an underwhelming display of dramatic fireworks in “Z for Zachariah,” a post-apocalyptic survival tale propelled by male-female emotional dynamics.
Set in a remote valley spared from radioactive contamination after a presumed global catastrophe, the film from director Craig Zobel effectively sets all its surface parts in motion but, crucially, doesn’t sufficiently develop the turbulent undercurrent of tension and intrigue that are called for in the circumstances.
Based on the 1974 novel of the same title by Robert C. O’Brien, the film does possess something of that last-days-of-man-on-Earth feeling of numerous sci-fi ventures of that period.
The film begins with a young woman and her dog emerging from a contamination-proof suit on high ground above what is otherwise apparently an unlivable world.
For her part, Ann (Margot Robbie) has self-sufficiently persevered. She lives in the spacious rural house where she grew up, is surrounded by thousands of books and LP records, and industriously tends to her crops.
She even has a cow that gives milk and finds solace in religion, playing the organ in the small chapel nearby that her preacher father built. She’s also very attractive.
All this changes with the startling arrival of a man who also emerges from a protective suit, but in hysterics and desperately afraid of contamination. This is John (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who, after the initial moments of mutual alarm have passed, accepts Ann’s hospitality and takes to a bed to recover.
What are a man and woman going to do together to pass the time if they believe they’re the last two people on Earth?
Despite the obvious answer, this pair proceeds slowly.
Then a third wheel turns up to change the dynamics entirely.
Caleb (Chris Pine) is a scruffy young guy with traces of radiation on him, but the other two agree to let him stay for a bit.
However, even if the men decide they can co-habit, Ann is eventually going to have something to say about it, leading one to suspect that one-third of the world’s known human population won’t be around that much longer.
The effectiveness of the piece, especially in its final half, is almost entirely dependent upon subtext, mutual suspicions, underlying tensions, sexual tipping points, self-control and all manner of other human impulses that lie just beneath the surface.
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