Z for Zachariah (Craig Zobel, 2015)

Margot Robbie, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Chris Pine in Z for Zachariah

Cast: Margot Robbie, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Chris Pine. Screenplay: Nissar Modi, based on a novel by Robert C. O'Brien. Cinematography: Tim Orr. Production design: Matthew Munn. Film editing: Jane Rizzo. Music: Heather McIntosh.

Z for Zachariah is based on a young adult novel, but it's a movie for grownups who know how to savor its treatment of race, religion, sex, secrets, and lies, and moreover who aren't troubled by its failure to provide solutions to all the problems it crams into a microcosm. When I say "based on" I mean that literally: I haven't read the novel on which it's based, but the Wikipedia summary suggests that screenwriter Nissar Modi took only the premise of that book -- surviving a nuclear holocaust in a kind of new Eden -- and crafted something very different, adding a third character and changing the race of one. I have the feeling that if the film had been made by an "art house" director like Kelly Reichardt, for example, or a French director like Olivier Assayas, and with actors that cause no stir at the box office, unlike the beautiful and starry Margot Robbie, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Chris Pine, it would have made more of a sensation among critics than the middling 79% "fresh" rating it gets at Rotten Tomatoes. Because it's a mostly low-key drama simmering with sexual and racial tension. Its ending leaves closure up to the viewer, as the best films do. And despite the cast seeming a little too rich for the film's blood -- they do look a little too well-groomed and well-fed for survivors of the apocalypse, as several critics noted -- the performances are top-notch.

The Martian (Ridley Scott, 2015)

Andy Weir's best-selling science fiction novel was one of the few that manage to emphasize science almost as much as fiction. The film version, being aimed at a somewhat less cerebral audience, doesn't quite keep that balance, but Drew Goddard's screenplay is an admirable effort to keep up with protagonist Mark Watney's (Matt Damon) determination to "science the shit out of" the problem of surviving after he has been marooned on Mars. And in an age when science has fallen afoul of politics, The Martian nobly attempts to bring some luster to this essential human endeavor. There is also a political undercurrent in the film, namely the hurdles that NASA administrator Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels) has to leap in order to achieve the rescue of his stranded astronaut. It's gratifying, too, to see so many actors of color -- Michael Peña, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Donald Glover, among others -- given key roles in the effort to rescue Watney, all of them given parts emphasizing their skill and intelligence. On the other hand, there were protests that the ethnicity of some of the characters in the film had been changed. In the novel, for example, the mission director is called Venkat Kapoor, and he is a Hindu. His first name is changed in the film to Vincent, and he's played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, the British actor whose parents were born in Nigeria -- the change is signaled by an explanation that his father was Hindu and his mother was a Baptist. One reason for such protests is that director Scott's previous film was Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014), in which all of the Egyptian and Middle Eastern characters were played by white actors like Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton, a continuation of an old Hollywood tradition that increasingly seems wrong-headed. Fortunately, in The Martian Scott kept the novel's prominent female roles, including mission commander Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain) and astronaut Beth Johanssen (Kate Mara).