In the wake of a nuclear war, a young woman survives on her own, fearing she may actually be the proverbial last woman on earth, until she discovers the most astonishing sight of her life: another human being. A distraught scientist, he’s nearly been driven mad by radiation exposure and his desperate search for others. A fragile, imperative strand of trust connects them. But when a stranger enters the valley, their precarious bond begins to unravel.
Although the movie stops at the book's two-thirds mark, the abrupt ending is a killer. It creeped me out and then laid me out. For days I couldn't get out of my head the way it wreaked havoc on my sympathies.
– David Edelstein,
New York Magazine/Vulture,
28 Aug 2015
rotten:
Z for Zachariah has the tasteful dullness of a movie too afraid to make a choice in any direction.
– Wesley Morris,
Grantland,
28 Aug 2015
fresh:
Zobel and Modi have crafted a thoughtful narrative about the experience of navigating and attempting to accommodate others' personalities.
– Aisha Harris,
Slate,
28 Aug 2015
rotten:
"Z for Zachariah" is ultimately too dramatically slight and brief for its ambitions, despite its sometimes labored myth-making script and visuals.
– Matt Zoller Seitz,
RogerEbert.com,
28 Aug 2015
fresh:
The drama brims with religious allusion and questions of how faith manifests in a world without hope.