Z FOR ZACHARIAH
DIRECTOR: Craig Zobel
CAST: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Margot Robbie, Chris Pine
CLASSIFICATION: 10-12 PG
RUNNING TIME: 98 minutes
RATING: 3 stars (out of 5)
Theresa Smith
WITH a very slow hand, director Craig Zobel has taken Robert O’Brien’s 1970s teen lit and turned it into a melancholic adult story for the millennial.
Chiwetel Ejiofor and Margot Robbie in Z For Zachariah
WITH a very slow hand, director Craig Zobel has taken Robert O’Brien’s 1970s teen lit and turned it into a melancholic adult story for the millennial. Post-apocalyptic love triangles have become their own sub-genre though this one stays firmly in the PG territory. It emphasises nuance over OTT emotional angst, pitting religion against science and shows us how, when there are more than two humans around, trust becomes an issue.
What used to be a story about possibly the last man and woman on earth is now a love triangle in a secluded US valley shielded from a nuclear disaster.
Young Ann Burden (Robbie) has been patiently eking out a lonely existence on her family farm, living God’s will, when down the road comes strolling John Loomis (Ejiofor). A scientist who knows more about what happened than he cares to admit, Loomis thinks he has found paradise in the fecund, very green valley and Ann.
She nurses him through a bout of radiation sickness and a friendship forms, but this deepening relationship is thrown offkilter by the appearance of a younger stranger in the form of ever-so-slightly weasel-like Caleb (Pine).
This youngster is not only more age appropriate to the young Ann but, like her, is rather religious, something that makes the more pragmatic Loomis roll his eyes.
While the book was in the format of a diary, the film is a coherent third-person story that manages to wring every bit of drama out of the fairly simple set-up. The film remains a story about trust, emphasising the power dynamic between the three that is predicated on who has knowledge and who doesn’t.
As religion versus science parables go, it gets by on some fairly obvious plotting – it relies on the emotional current running between the three to show how honesty, forgiveness and power become troubling issues because the three don’t see the world in the same way, even if the world is not what it used to be. Even when the world has literally ended, being human means having all those same insecurities and worries as before because you are still you.
Ejiofor is charming as the older scientist who represents not only the power of science, but the insidious charm of power and how corrupting that can be. Robbie quietly and unflashily creates an innocent who nonetheless has her doubts about becoming an Eve and starting the cycle all over again, and all three can do with a nod and a look what lesser actors struggle to do in entire films – show internal emotion without having to say what they feel.
The pleasant tone of the first half of the film in which Zobel takes his time to set up their daily routine and allow Loomis and Ann the space to celebrate small accomplishments and grow a relationship, is contrasted by a tense and foreboding second half once Caleb puts in an appearance.
Z for Zachariah is restrained, ambiguous and mercifully free of CGI, asking questions rather than presenting you with answers. Even when it feels a bit contrived in the end, you appreciate the quiet.
If you liked The Quiet Earth, you will like this.