Considering the summer heat is officially kicking in down here in Australia, I’m probably in the most ideal state of mind to engage with a film about a guy trying to survive in the desert. And considering this first came out near the end of January of this year (deep in the middle of the last summer), I’m willing to bet that that timing isn’t a coincidence. Trust me to be both timely and late to the party at the same time.
Set against a low-key dystopian backdrop similar to what Below did a couple years ago, the film follows Virgil (Zac Efron) as he makes his way to ‘The Compound’. However, on the way there, he finds a gold nugget buried in the desert sand. A huge nugget. So, while the guy who drove him out there (Anthony Hayes, who also co-wrote/co-produced/directed this) goes to get an excavator, Virgil stays behind to stop anyone else from getting at it.
Efron gives a lot with his performance here. Beyond just being able to hold attention with just his presence on-screen, credit where it’s due for how well he does with portraying the physical and mental toll that being stuck in the blistering sun takes on him. And I do mean blistering; the practical effects work really fucks him up over the course of his stint.
From there, the cinematography from Ross Giardina emphasises the void of sand that surrounds Virgil in all directions. There’s a gray colour palette to how it’s shown, but it kinda works because it manages to make everything look scorching and also cold and desolate, like two different kinds of desert are sharing space with each other. It also manages the These Final Hours trick of making the bright shining sun look like the most depressing part of the landscape. And bear in mind that the landscape includes the wreckage of a plane, and enough wild dogs to give Los Angeles locals the willies.
While the psychological touches to Virgil’s slow descent into hallucinations are nicely done, and the examples of his resourcefulness fit, the film gains that extra dose of intrigue in how his place in this world plays into some specific national imagery. This is where Susie Porter as the Irish Stranger comes in, who takes Virgil to task for leaving the desolate city to pillage her land. To make things sting even more, that idea of exploiting natural resources is amplified by how… well, Virgil isn’t really the most resourceful guy.
Yeah, he learns over time, but he’s not exactly the best when it comes to saving water in a place devoid of it. Hell, the reason why he even found the nugget in the first place is because the car broke down… after he overheated it by turning on the air conditioning. A little too used to city living, it seems. And through that, the film brings up an interesting point about the kind of wastage that likely caused the dystopian collapse in the first place. They didn’t know how to properly use the resources they already had, so when they also put themselves through this much just to get more of them, the hubris is as visible as the waves of refracted heat on the air.
I’ll admit, this still rubs against my general disinterest in this genre, but to the film’s credit, I like this one more than others I’ve looked at. Efron’s performance was strong enough to keep me engaged, the visuals and sound design really sell the harshness of the environment (and that’s without factoring in how I’m likely melting on my side of the screen anyway), and there are enough thematic touches in the script to give it a bigger point beyond exertion.
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