This is a thriller that starts out rather
slowly and peacefully with rolling hills in a lush green valley (filming was in
New Zealand and West Virginia) where Ann (Margot) has been abandoned on her
family’s farm after some kind of nuclear holocaust. By some kind of accident of weather, the valley has been
shielded from radiation that is rumored to be everywhere else. Ann has her dog for company and is
self-sufficient in getting food and other necessities, at least
temporarily. She wonders if she is
the last person on earth, and then comes upon a man in a safe suit out on the
road. They’re both wary of one
another and pull out guns immediately until they can determine the
trustworthiness of the other.
Ann seems much less suspicious than the civil
engineer Loomis (Ejiofor) who has radiation sickness, and takes him up to her
house where she nurses him back to health, injecting into him some type of
medicine he has that serves as an antidote. He has been traumatized by recent events, and her tender,
loving touch is like a balm for him.
The two start becoming close, and he begins to
use his engineering skills in rebuilding efforts. It’s clear they are from different cultures, he from the
north and educated; she, the daughter of a southern farmer/minister who sees
Loomis as someone God has sent to help her. There is the budding of a romance, but he advises her that
they should proceed slowly because of the effect it will have on both their
lives.
One day, Ann sees another man when she is out
with her dog, and gets enough nerve to approach him with her gun in her hand. Turns out, Caleb (Pine) is from a
nearby mining town and shares many of Ann’s religious beliefs. When she takes him to the house, Loomis
is aghast that she immediately invites him to stay with them and fixes dinner
for him. But Caleb plans to stay
only for a day or so because he is headed farther south.
Triangles are the most difficult of
relationships, and when Caleb energetically helps out with chores and
rebuilding—even helping to get a water wheel constructed to generate
electricity—his stay is extended.
And this is when the story heats up with some of the expected twists and
a rather ambiguous conclusion.
I wondered how the title relates to the drama,
and it seems that in the Robert C. O’Brien novel on which the screenplay is
based, Ann has a childhood book called A
to Z, and she concluded that if A is for Adam the first man, Z is for
Zachariah, the last man—the situation she finds herself in before Loomis
appears. There is a reference to
the book in the film when Loomis pulls it off the shelf in Ann’s library, and
looks at it briefly.
Zachariah
explores the tension that exists in times of disaster between fear and
charity. Not only do Ann and
Loomis embody these emotional reactions, all three characters relate their
experiences with desperation and with other human beings dealing with the
aftermath of the tragedy. All
convey the difficulty/necessity of maintaining hope during the bleakest
times. We are reminded of how
critical survival skills are, sometimes making the difference between life and
death. It was also interesting—and
imminently plausible—that people would venture out, not grasping the dangers of
radiation.
Craig Zobel shows his skills as a director (he
also directed Compliance) of films
that bring home points about human relationship, ethics, and fairness. Zachariah
is well paced, topical, and beautifully filmed (Tim Orr, cinematographer, and
also for Manglehorn, Joe, and Prince Avalanche). The actress Margot Robbie is not as
well known as the other two, but she clearly carries her part forcefully
here. Ejiofor is one of my
favorite actors, and he and Robbie convey as much in nonverbal signs as in what
they say. Pine manages to walk the
fine line that he as a kind of intruder must in relationship to the other two
who have become very close, but with each of whom he has much in common.
A film that prompts questions; how might you be in similar circumstances?
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