Taglines: After the end of the world she thought she was alone. She was wrong.
Ann Burden is a teenage girl who thought she was the last survivor of a nuclear war. Since her family’s disappearance on a search expedition, she has lived alone on her farm in a small valley spared from radiation poisoning. In May, a year after the war, a stranger in a radiation-proof suit approaches her valley. Afraid he might be dangerous, Ann hides in a cave. Watching from a distance, Ann does not warn the man when he mistakenly bathes in a radioactive stream. But when he sickens, her fear of being alone forever leads her to reveal herself to help him.
The stranger is John Loomis, a chemist who helped design a prototype radiation-proof “safe-suit” at an underground lab near Ithaca, New York. After searching many months for survivors, he found Burden Valley. Ann is impressed by Loomis’s calm explanation of his (possibly fatal) radiation sickness, thinking she would be hysterical in his place. Loomis is amazed the valley is radiation-free (a “meteorological enclave”).
After Ann moves him into her house, he explains how to pump fuel for the tractor manually and begins planning a hydroelectric generator. Having the companion she often wished for, Ann imagines eventually marrying him, but decides not to discuss it until he recovers. Still, she thinks wistfully of having children someday. While plowing, she remembers lines from a favorite poem, Millay’s “Epitaph for the Race of Man,” happy that she is no longer the scribe and confessor of Earth like the speaker in the poem.
Z for Zachariah is inspired by the novel of the same name by Robert C. O’Brien, published posthumously in 1974, and was created by Pall Grimsson and adapted for the screen by Nissar Modi (Breaking At The Edge).
Z for Zachariah is a post-apocalyptic science-fiction novel by Robert C. O’Brien that was published posthumously in 1974. The name Robert C. O’Brien was the pen name used by Robert Leslie Conly. After the author’s death in 1973, his wife Sally M. Conly and daughter Jane Leslie Conly completed the book guided by his notes. Set in the USA, the story is in the form of a diary written from the first-person perspective of sixteen-year-old Ann Burden, who has survived a nuclear war and nerve gas through living in a small valley with a self-contained weather system.
Z for Zachariah
Directed by: Craig Zobel
Starring: Margot Robbie, Chris Pine, Chiwetel Ejiofor
Screenplay by: Nissar Modi
Production Design by: Matthew Munn
Cinematography by: Tim Orr
Film Editing by: Jane Rizzo
Costume Design by: Bob Buck
Art Direction by: Ken Turner
Music by: Heather McIntosh
MPAA Rating: PG – 13 for a scene of sexuality, partial nudity, and brief strong language.
Studio: Roadside Attractions
Release Date: August 28, 2015
Visits: 57
