Sundance: Margot Robbie Shows Off Her Range in 'Z for Zachariah'

Margot Robbie burned a hole in our memories last winter when she went toe-to-toe and skin-to-skin with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street. Though she was a veteran actress in her native Australia, the scene-stealing role as the disgraced financial kingpin’s vixen second wife served as the 24-year-old Robbie’s introduction to most American moviegoers — which means they’re bound to be quite surprised when they see her in the new Sundance drama, Z for Zachariah.

A post-apocalyptic tale directed by Craig Zobel (Compliance), the film allows Robbie to entirely subvert the incredible first impression she made last year. Here, she plays Ann, a sweet farm girl who is to an Appalachian mountain town what Robert Neville is to Manhattan in I Am Legend. We’re never told exactly what catastrophic event wiped out the vast majority of the world’s population (radioactive water and Hazmat suits hint at nuclear meltdown), but Ann tries not to dwell on the destruction, instead working to keep her small farm functioning without electricity or gasoline.

The daughter of a preacher, Ann leans on her faith, frequently visiting the small one-room chapel where her late father once preached and playing songs on the organ. She feels blessed, because the valley in which she lives was spared most of the damage of whatever nuclear catastrophe went down, and Robbie sells Ann’s optimism without veering into religious fanatic territory.

Her world opens up a bit when another survivor, a scientist named Loomis played by Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave), stumbles upon the road leading up to Ann’s house. She takes him in and, though their world views clash — at one point, he tries to figure a scientific reason for the valley’s survival — they soon become close; when you only have one option for companionship, you can let a lot of differences slide.

The little moments of sexual possibility between them are as far from Wolf of Wall Street territory as possible; though it goes unsaid, we’re to assume that Ann is a virgin, and the uncertainty with which she undresses does nothing to dissuade us from that notion, even when she is the first one to make a move in the few, awkward romantic encounters. Eventually, a coal miner named Caleb played by Chris Pine, shows up as well, and here we have the beginning of a post-apocalyptic love triangle. A religious man himself, he’s a much better fit for Ann, and Pine’s chemistry with Robbie is undeniable, but even then, her tentativeness is the most noteworthy part of their physical exchanges.

There is more depth to Ann than we first are led to believe; when Caleb and Loomis compare the horrors that they’ve seen, Ann remains silent, but later shares some of her own tragedies. She has a quiet strength about her, which is slowly revealed to the audience in organic ways, and we see her grow as she realizes that the fate of the planet rests on her choices of men and ability to begin the very slow process of regenerating the human race.

It’s easy for actresses to get pigeonholed in roles, especially when they’re such ready-made ingenues like Robbie. In the next few years, she will certainly play her fair share of high profile femme fatales and more conventional heroines, including a con artist opposite Will Smith in the hustler caper Focus, the cunning Harley Quinn in DC’s Suicide Squad, and Jane Porter in the Tarzan reboot. But if there are any questions about Robbie’s range, she just needs to send a casting director a copy of Z for Zachariah, where she was more sheep than Wolf.