While the influx of post-apocalyptic dramas can result in a great deal of similarly toned features, director Jake Paltrow (The Good Night) has set out to provide a unique spin on the genre with his latest work, Young Ones. Following a 14-year-old boy who fights to survive in a dystopian future where water is the most precious resource, the first two trailers have dropped today for the film starring Michael Shannon, Nicholas Hoult, Kodi Smit Mc-Phee, and Elle Fanning.
We were fans of the film at Sundance, saying in our review, “Young Ones may be a somewhat derivative piece of work (from Stagecoach to The Road Warrior, the homage bleeds on the screen), but there’s more than enough originality on display to wet the beaks of sci-fi and western fans alike.” The first trailers showcase an inventive, intriguing world complete with a robot and warranting some of the Spielberg comparisons thrown about. Screen Media hasn’t set a U.S. release date for this one yet, but one can see the previews below, along with a poster.
YOUNG ONES is 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 (SHANNON) lives on this harsh frontier with his children, Jerome (SMIT-MCPHEE)and Mary (FANNING). He defends his farm from bandits, works the supply routes, and hopes to rejuvenate the soil. But Mary’s boyfriend, Flem Lever (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.
Young Ones arrives on August 6th in France, but has yet to secure U.S. release date.