When making an adaptation, making changes to the source
material does not have to be a cataclysmic affair. Take, for instance, Jurassic Park, a film that wildly veers away from the original
novel in regards to tone, characters, and even major plot points, yet the film
has ended up as more beloved than the book ever was. However, sometimes a singular change can
completely destroy the intent of the original work, which not only can make the
adaptation unfaithful, but also thematically muddled and thereby inferior. This is what seems to have happened in Z for Zachariah.
Though I have not read the novel of the same name, the parts
of Z for Zachariah the film does a
good job with are apparently those lifted straight from the page. Set in a post-apocalypse wherein seemingly
nobody has survived (presumably after a nuclear war), Ann (Margot Robbie) is
living alone on her family farm, trying to eke out a living by hunting local
game and tilling her fields. While out
hunting, she comes across a man, John (Chiwetel Ejiofor), bathing in a pool
that she knows to be radioactive. She
offers him shelter and nurses him back to health. Ann’s farm is seemingly protected from
radiation due to a geographic anomaly, so she lets John stay and the two try to
build a life together.
What’s remarkable about this scenario is that it plays out
pretty much how one would think a scenario where two straight people of the opposite
sex remain as the last living beings on Earth.
They are ideologically opposed on a number of things: Ann is a religious
and sentimental farm girl who only wants to remain comfortable with what she
has, yet John is a scientist who wants to focus his efforts on rebuilding
society, even given the meager resources at his disposal and what that might
cost Ann. But the two are still drawn to
each other in compulsively sexual ways, feeding into a biological need that is
simultaneously romantic as it is creepy.
It is an oddly compelling way to watch two people interact, particularly
when one takes into consideration how vulnerable Ann is around John and how he
could very easily exploit that, yet never crosses that tempting line.
But the film completely destroys that tension by adding a
third character not found in the novel, Caleb (Chris Pine). Never mind the fact that Chris Pine is a poor
excuse of an actor who is only remotely enjoyable when he’s imitating William
Shatner, but this completely subverts the entire point of the story. Instead of exploring the ramifications of two
strangers trying to build a life together, the film decides to contrive a love
triangle that transforms its unique premise into a mundane soap opera. The character of Caleb is more ideologically
similar to Ann, yet Ann sees more hope for her survival in John, and I was just
waiting for one of them to turn out to be a werewolf or a vampire so that the Twilight parallels could be more
blatant.
This film fails purely because of its wasted potential. It had a good thing going with its two-person
cast, painting a dark and disturbing romance between uneasy strangers that
works just fine as originally written.
However, with the inclusion of an unnecessary third character whose
actor couldn’t even bring anything to the role that the screenplay didn’t, the
tension quickly unravels and the entire film’s thesis becomes buried in trite
romantic clichés. Now if you’ll excuse
me, I have what I’ve heard is a vastly superior novel to read.
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