Young Ones (2014)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Jake Paltrow
	Actors: Elle Fanning (Super 8, Twixt), Nicholas Hoult (X-men: First Class), Michael Shannon (Man of Steel), Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama, SF
	Conditions of visioning: 12.07.2014, Cinema du Passage, NIFFF14
Synopsis: In a region of the USA from which water has since long disappeared, a family of farmers is struggling to survive.
Review: This post-apocalyptic movie by a young director and starring some new Hollywood talents was the closing feature to the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival 2014. As in The Road (already starring Kodi Smit-McPhee), the emphasis is placed more on the drama than on possible futuristic technologies, except for the carrier robot (see poster) and a quick glimpse at an advanced smartphone. The rest of the technology is rather backward in the isolated region we spent most of the time in. I like the design of the father's gun, half rifle half shotgun but 100% elegant (couldn't find a decent picture to share with you though). The family relationships in the movie are interesting thanks to pretty good actors, but I didn't feel fully satisfied, maybe because the movie doesn't always show what it should, I think. In the end it is the rather simple story of a family: the son and his father role-model, the absent mother, the daughter in conflict with the father and in love with an ambitious and greedy young man who would like to enter the family circle. The SF part is just to increase the stakes, as it is indeed hard to survive without water. Not brilliant but a good movie. Makes me want to watch again Waterworld and The Book of Eli.
Rating: 6 /10