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The Quiet Earth
“What say you and I take turns with Lotto Lady here?”
See the sun rise for 15 minutes. See naked man. He wakes up to silence and a dead clock. Watch him wander around in silence as he gradually discovers more and more signs of no-life. . Welcome to The Quiet Earth.
Meet Zac Hobson (Bruno Lawrence): scientist, looter, squatter, transvestite, last man on earth. For a few weeks, anyway. Then he meets up with Joanne (Alison Routledge), crazy redhead with horrible fashion sense. Together they are determined to look for more people instead of attempting to repopulate the earth themselves, or at least going through the motions, wink wink. Maybe that’s why they look for others; Bald brooding crazy guys don’t turn Joanne on. Whatever, lady.
They do find one more person, it’s the token black guy (Pete Smith)! Funny enough, these characters all try to kill each other on first meeting. Good job, last humans! And now, time for car chases and secrets and jealousy – ooo. It’s all so tense and dramatic…not.
You know, when the director says “when we were finished making this movie, we thought it would be a dog,” that should say something right there (and yes, I did watch the commentary hoping it would at least be more entertaining). I found myself caring less and less as the movie went on, since less and less made sense.
Meh. It’s not the worst movie ever, but I’d rather have read the book. Since it’s supposed to be a classic movie, go ahead and rent it just to say you’ve seen it. It can make for some good peanut gallery action if you’re with a group.
“I wouldn’t ride with you if you were the last man on earth!”
..............................................................................“I’m working on it.”
Comments
William Creamer:
The main difference from the book is that the book explains the story background, which is the basis for everything Hobson does, and which is why the movie is so unfathomable at the end. Hobson had a son who was developmentally disabled. Hobson leaves his son in the bath tub alone for a few minutes. When he returns his son is dead. He blames himself and thinks he may secretly have wanted his son to die, so did not prevent his death, or try hard enough to save him. That is why he is not with his wife and wants to kill himself at the motel. At the conclusion of the book it is revealed that the pills he took left him alive, but in a coma. Doctors can not revive him, so he remains in that state, more truly alone then he was before. It took me many years to locate a copy of the book at a university library, in their rare book collection no less! I had a student borrow it for me and I copied the whole thing, so I could keep it.