Young Ones

Young Ones is a science fiction western film written, produced and directed by Jake Paltrow (Greenberg). The film, which had its world premiere out of competition at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, stars Nicholas Hoult, Elle Fanning, Michael Shannon, and Kodi Smit-McPhee.

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.

Most science fiction stories are based on some present day inspiration, and for Young Ones, Paltrow had a few real world issues to pull ideas from. “There were two newspaper articles that first sparked the idea: one about a town in Chile that was having clean water trucked in. I was drawn in by the reasons people stayed behind when most had left…The other was a story about the government of Yemen talking about moving the capital of the country elsewhere as it would run out of water in ten years.”

Young Ones is rated 14A.

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