Film #5 — 1/2 Post-Apocalyptic Films; 4/9 Decades
By C. Ramsay
Commercializing the nuclear paranoia of the 1960s, Panic in Year Zero! centres on married couple Harry and Ann, as well as their two teenage children, as they witness the start of nuclear war while embarking on a family road trip outside of suburban Los Angeles. Fear of the Other, of societal fracturing, and of isolation are pivotal to the film’s interests, which are also aimed at highlighting the specifics of how these fears can so quickly come to fruition. Before the day is out for the Baldwin family, disaster capitalism is on the rise, individualistic attitudes are rampant, and panic is unavoidable.
The hypocrisy of American values is underscored fairly early on, with a radio broadcast reporting that “the president has called upon every American to do his duty in reestablishing law and order,” followed quickly by the completely contradictory statement that “there are no civilians. We are all at war.” The public’s understandable large-scale panic, resulting in mass migration and the frenzied purchasing of necessary supplies, is frequently disharmonized by the smaller, more individual instances of panic that typically culminate in dangerous speeding, theft and looting, and violent altercations. The inevitable death of the nuclear family at the advent of nuclear holocaust, along with its corresponding familial expectations, is briefly acknowledged when Ann Baldwin voices concern for her mother’s well-being back in Los Angeles and is promptly stymied by her husband triaging their own safety above his mother-in-law’s. Though he’s right in his priorities, he shuts down any word of his wife’s mother with such carelessness and lack of emotion, with her never being brought up again past an attempted phone call, that she reads more as a dead-end plot point than an exemplary subject of the film’s philosophy. Regrettably, any interest the film evokes from the audience in terms of what’s considered justified under extreme circumstances and where the line of no return is is never really explored more deeply than simply introducing the concepts as a means to progress the plot.
Likewise, the women of the story are practically non-characters, remaining mostly absent or functioning as tools to deepen the men’s characterization. Ann repeatedly brings up the necessity of caring about humanity for humanity’s sake, but Harry only looks at her as naive, insisting with certainty that everyone is only out for themselves. In responding this way, he inadvertently contributes to the root of the danger he feels they’re facing. From Harry’s perspective, Year Zero has invited a refresh on societal courtesies. He either doesn’t believe in the survival of humanity as it used to be known, or he only cares about it for his personal sanity’s sake—a performance used as a distraction from the family’s new living conditions. As the audience most regularly follows Harry throughout the film, it seems at first that Ann might be purposefully written out of many scenes to better reinforce the fact that her pleading with her husband to care more about others is almost always left ignored. However, while the movie has clear interests, John Morton and Jay Simms’ script cares more about plot progression than what it has to say in the process, focusing on the pageantry of any incidents that arise rather than the deeper motivations feeding their actors. Similarly, director-star Ray Milland feels much more interested in the latter half of his role than the former. The atmosphere never stays cohesive because of these factors, but this is not confidently recognizable until over halfway through the film, meaning audience reactions and interest levels are likely to fluctuate. When it finally becomes apparent that the film doesn’t take itself too seriously, so too does it become apparent that it’s not lighthearted enough to shy away from the topics it only halfheartedly brings up. Effectively, Panic in Year Zero! stalls out the longer it goes on, incapable of committing to a speed or a lane.
Star rating (/5): ★★½
Recommend?: Worth checking out