Edit
Storyline
Set in a near future when water has become the most precious and dwindling resource on the planet, one that dictates everything from the macro of political policy to the detailed micro of interpersonal family and romantic relationships. The land has withered into something wretched. The dust has settled on a lonely, barren planet. The hardened survivors of the loss of Earth's precious resources scrape and struggle. Ernest Holm Michael Shannon lives on this harsh frontier with his children, Jerome Kodi Smit-McPhee and Mary Elle Fanning. He defends his farm from bandits, works the supply routes, and hopes to rejuvenate the soil. But Mary's boyfriend, Flem Lever (Nicholas Hoult), has grander designs. He wants Ernest's land for himself, and will go to any length to get it. From writer/director Jake Paltrow comes a futuristic western, told in three chapters, which inventively layers Greek tragedy over an ethereal narrative that's steeped deeply in the values of the American West. Written by
Laurent Boyé
Plot Summary
|
Plot Synopsis
Taglines:
In a future without water vengeance will rain.
Edit
Did You Know?
Trivia
The rifle/shotgun that many characters use in the film appears to be a fusion of a Lee-Enfield No. 1 Mark 3 rifle and a Mossberg Maverick 88 shotgun.
See more »
Goofs
The boom from overflying supersonic airplanes is heard when directly overhead. In reality, the sonic boom trails by at least the cruising altitude.
See more »
Quotes
[
first lines]
Jerome Holm:
I never saw this land when it was green. My father did. Hw worked it before the drought came. He used to talk about it all the time. He used to talk about the wheat they grew and the pride they felt. He always believed in the land. Even as the fights over water first divided states, then towns and then neighbours, most people who could, left. But he had his reasons for staying. He was convinced the land would come back. It just needed water. And he was right.
See more »
Soundtracks
Young Love
Written by Carole Joyner & Ric Cartey © 1956
Performed by
Sonny James
Published by Sony/ATV Music Publishing Ltd.
Courtesy of Captitol Records Nashville
See more »
If you love the artistic and non-mainstream risks taken by art-house films, then Young Ones belongs on your watch list with other indie Sci-Fis such as Lars von Trier's Melancholia, Juan Solanas' Upside Down, and Terry Gilliam's The Zero Theorem.
A gritty film about pioneers in a drought ridden landscape, it's a futuristic dust bowl tale as grim as Grapes of Wrath. It's memorable and keeps your attention, while portraying Sci-Fi in a very believable way. The mix of poverty and high technology, the extremes of the haves and have-nots, and water shortages in the US, amplifies the current state of a society as all good sci-fi films do.
Good actors and acting, and gorgeous to watch. What's not to like?