Z for Zechariah [2015] {Movie Review}

Dir: Craig Zobel
Starring: Margot Robbie, Chris Pine, Chiwetel Ejiofor
Dur: 1 hr 37 mins
Genre: Sci-fi drama
Rating: 2/10

This film suffers from a typical case of a betraying trailer. The trailer promised far more than the film delivered. Watching the trailer, one is given to believe that the film is full of post-apocalyptic drama. The reality is, a film struggling to make you believe in a post-apocalyptic drama. The setting is different. It’s a beautiful valley that is somehow preserved from any radioactive pollution that has destroyed the rest of the world as we are given to believe. One woman, Ann [Margot Robbie], and her faithful dog survive there. We are shown how they survive until they chance upon another survivor, Loomis [Chiwetel Ejiofor].
The two strike up a relationship that bends towards romance but is struck short by the arrival of another survivor, Caleb [Chris Pine]. The tension between the three becomes palpable and climaxes with the sudden disappearance of Caleb after the successful completion of the hydro-electric project the three were working on.
The film has an ambiguous ending. But to me, the film’s story itself was ambiguous. It wasn’t clear what the key message of the story was and neither was it clear what the film was trying to portray. Was it a story of survival? Was it a romantic tale? Was it a tragedy? But no matter what, it failed in every respect. It had elements of the above mentioned genres but it didn’t portray either of them well enough to be classified under any of these categories.  I’m surprised that the film received positive reviews and was rated pretty highly. There’s nothing in it that is praiseworthy and I struggle to understand how the reviewers could have rated it so highly.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Great Grand Masti 2 (2016) (Movie Review)

Image
Dir: Indra Kumar Starring: Vivek Oberoi, Riteish Deshmukh, Aftab Shivdasani, Urvashi Rautela Dur: 2 hrs 10 mins Genre: Comedy Rating: 1/10 Comment: The jokes, gestures and costumes are sexually suggestive. An absolute waste of time. “What an opening line”, you might think. But to say otherwise would be an absolute lie. This film is in fact, a great grand waste of time. It’s horrible whichever way you look at it. The story is weak and thrives on cheap thrills and sorry jokes. The actresses are no doubt eye-catching but the rest is all a blur. The comedy is in fact tragedy and the film attempts to play on the basest desires of man. It’s unbelievable that actors like Riteish and Vivek would do such a film. I am not a big fan of bollywood but I still feel bad when I see bollywood making films like these. All of a sudden, I see that sex is being propagated through Indian cinema. The views of sex are changing and filmmakers and actors are not hesitating to take on unconvent...
Read more

A Day with Don Bosco

                              Don Bosco was declared the Patron of Youth by Pope John Paul II in 1989. He received his mission: to be Father to the young, in a dream at the tender age of nine. He nurtured this call throughout his life and never wasted an opportunity to gather boys and direct them to God. He did not do this as a spiritual director, (at least no at first!) but rather as a friend, a companion and a seminarian. As a young boy, he would attract youngsters with his magic tricks, tightrope skills, games etc and then get them to recite the rosary with him or recount to them the Sunday sermon (which he remembered thanks to his prodigious memory). Already then, he had ingeniously found a way to combine religion and entertainment. His entertainment was necer for entertainment sake but rather a façade or an advertisment for religious instruction. Even as a young pries...
Read more

St. Joseph: A Father after the Father's Heart (Book Review)

Image
  St. Joseph: A Father after the Father’s Heart , Hyderabad: Don Bosco Publishing House, 2021, Rs. 150, pp. 240. The book is a compilation of articles from various authors writing about qualities of St. Joseph. They have used the litany of St. Joseph as an index and have put together articles on each of the invocations. All the contributors are Salesians from different parts of India but there a couple of contributors from abroad as well. The book lends itself to be a souvenir of the Year of St. Joseph that Pope Francis declared. Let me start out by commenting on the quality of production. The paper is of good quality and so is the design and layout. It is neat and has an attractive cover. Coming to the content, it gets rather repetitive but that is understandable considering that there is so little Biblical foundation for an exposition of St. Joseph. The articles often reference Pope Francis’ letter Patris Corde and extensively utilize Pope St. John Paul II’s apostolic exhort...
Read more