Trailer
Plot summary
Ann Burden has survived a nuclear war on her family's valley farmstead, sheltered from contamination by hillsides, weather and ground-fed water. She farms with her dog. A man named John Loomis walks in wearing a radiation suit, saying he is an engineer. He bathes in a contaminated creek and falls ill, and Ann nurses him back to health. Recovered, he helps pump diesel and gets the old tractor running so she can plant more before winter. Ann tells him her parents and younger brother left to find other survivors and never returned. John proposes a water wheel, built from her father's chapel planks, to generate electricity from the waterfall; Ann objects because of her father and her Christian faith. They grow closer while preparing for winter, though religion and his drinking cause friction.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Z for Zachariah (2015)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The three principal cast members were announced in May 2013 and at the time included Amanda Seyfried, who would eventually drop out and be replaced by Margot Robbie.
- Director Craig Zobel and cinematographer Tim Orr drew on Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky's films, among them Solaris, The Mirror and Stalker, incorporating landscapes into the story and using desaturated color.
- Set in the Eastern United States, the film was shot mostly in New Zealand, with principal photography beginning on January 27, 2014 in Canterbury, around the city of Christchurch.
- The film's plot has been compared to the 1959 Harry Belafonte movie The World, the Flesh and the Devil, about a love triangle between a black engineer, a white woman and a white man who may be the last people on Earth.
- The film had a limited theatrical release and was also released on video-on-demand platforms, grossing just $121,461 at the domestic US box office despite generally positive reviews from critics.
