Premiered at the Sundance Film Festival January 24, 2015
Blaine: I like to check out what movies premiere at the Sundance Film Festival every year and I see which ones have my full interest. "Z for Zachariah" was one of them. I just took one look at this image with Margot Robbie, Chris Pine and Chiwetel Ejiofor and I thought "that looks like a movie I would want to see", even though I didn't know what it was about and there was no trailer. I then shared it with my friend, James and he told me he loved the book so he was familiar with it. When it was released in theaters, it was also released on Dish on Demand. I've never rented anything on demand before, but I really wanted to see "Z for Zachariah", so I did it. I rented it on Demand the last day of August 2015, watched it with my parents and we all agreed it's a great movie.
Plot (Spoiler Alert)
A young small town farm girl named Ann does what she can to survive after a nuclear holocaust has wiped out the human race. She grows food in her garden, hunts animals, raises chickens and cows for eggs and milk and keeps away from any thing that has radiation. She lives in farmstead that is located in a small pocket that has not been contaminated.
One day while hunting with her dog, she finds a cart on the road and then a stranger in a radiation suit appears. He checks to see if the area is clear and goes to bath in a pond which turns out to have radioactive water. She runs to warn him about the water, but it’s too late. He jumps out of the water and she takes him back to her house where she nurses him back to health and prays for his life. His name is John Loomis and as he recovers, he and Ann get to know each other a little. She tells him about her parents and younger brother who left to find other survivors and never came back. John wants to get out of the house while he is recovering and he goes to watch Ann working in her garden growing soybeans. She can’t use the tractor because there is no gas and the pumps down at the gas station don’t work without electricity, but John knows she can get it to work manually. She takes his advice and it works.
Ann lets John know the power has been out for a while. John has an idea to build a water wheel, but to build it they need the wood from the church. Ann is not at all in favor of that because she is religious. Her father was a preacher and built the church himself. She believes that God is to thank for their survival. They can't use the wood from house and the barn and there is nothing else a distance, that isn't contaminated that they can use. They need electricity so the freezer will run and they can store up food before winter.
The next morning Ann goes to the hen house to get eggs, but they're gone. John interrupts Ann while she’s working on the crops to tell her they should call it a day, but she feels she needs to finish what she’s doing first. John goes down to the gas station where there’s beer on the shelves on the vacant store. He gets drunk and Ann tries to help him get into bed, but he doesn’t want her help and scares her.
John apologizes the next morning for his behavior and Ann accepts it. Ann heads down to the church and plays the hymn. She sees a silhouette of who she believes is John through the mirror. When she turns around he is gone. Ann asks John why he left before she finished, but he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Ann and John have dinner while listening to her daddy's records and drink a bottle of wine. Ann asks John to dance with her. They do a slow dance and then kiss each other. Ann offers herself to John, but he feels they should slow it down.
Ann finally agrees to use the church wood to build a water wheel. She goes out hunting and finds another survivor named Caleb. All he wants is a glass of water. Back at the farmhouse, John checks to see if Caleb is contaminated. Turns out Caleb has been the one stealing the eggs and was the one listening to Ann play hymns. Caleb tells his story, how he came fifty miles to the farmhouse and how he survived. Ann is ok with him staying, but John doesn’t know what to think of him.
As they have lunch together, John talks about a sick boy he found at a warehouse and how he had to kill him to get him out of his misery. Later John confesses that the boy he killed might have been Ann’s brother. Ann is sad to know the only family she had left is gone.
The next day all three of them take the wood from the church piece by piece and start working on the water wheel. Caleb and Ann fool around with each other and seem to become close and all that concerns John. Days pass and they are almost finished. They celebrate by getting drunk, playing a few games and going for a little swim. That night John finally admits to Ann that he loves her and she doesn’t know what to think. John passes out on the bed and Ann goes to Caleb and they have sex in the bathroom.
It’s hard for Ann to know which man is best for her. John and Caleb put the finishing touches of the wheel. The wheel is now completed and as Caleb is on his way up he trips. John tries to pull him up and then he just stares a him as he appears to fall off of the waterfall. Back at the house Ann apologizes to John. John tells her that Caleb has left to travel south. She doesn’t take the news very well and she runs out hoping to catch up with him, but she has no luck finding him.
The electricity is working at the house and Ann is testing to see what works. She then goes to the barn and finds the church organ inside. She plays the hymn and John comes in and listens.
Blaine: After Caleb comes, John sort of becomes the jealous type, but I think he’s trying not to look like it because he wants to be a gentleman. He loves Ann, but he is nervous to admit his feelings for her. Ann is confused as she is attracted to both men. It is too much for her. John and Caleb are competing for her affection. "Z for Zachariah” becomes a mystery towards the end, did John let Caleb die or not? My mom said "It's up to your imagination what you think happened”.
Director Craig Zobel said it was an interesting experiment to have only three actors in the film and I myself find it interesting as well. I mean they didn’t need any extras in the background, no other actors just three through the entire film.
My dad said he liked how the first time she saw John it was mysterious. We didn't know who he was and whether or not he was friendly and his suit and cart look like something from outer space. There's a deleted scene where John is trying leave the house at night and he falls on the stairs and Ann finds him with a bag and the next morning she asks him if she has done something wrong. I don’t know where the scene took place. My rating on "Z for Zachariah" is five out of five.
Music by Heather McIntosh
Award
"Z for Zachariah" was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance FIlm Festival.
