Explaining Why Zac Efron’s Gold Is Brilliant. Different is what we do here on THiNC. Running the same old, same old, Hollywood pushed super hero nonsense is just not how we roll. But if you had the gumption to write a screenplay that breaks the mold, tries something new, whether it succeeds or not… THiNC. will be interested. And GOLD? Starring Zac Efron? Crushes different completely out of the park. It doesn’t talk down to the viewer with inane voice overs explaining the world, the situation, or what it is we are watching. Gold just walks the user straight into this new reality, and then beats the user up until they collectively cry uncle. I will say, the moral, and the lesson here is a bit of a double hander… and yet, I’m guessing many users might not fully grasp it. Which is why we will discuss the movie inside and out, in order to make certain that we are all on the same page here with the meaning and insights we can learn from this fabulous little film.
Quick Gold Walkthrough
Gold is ambiguous. It opens in a scary dustbowled future. Not a hundred years in the future. Could even be tomorrow. But its a horrible tomorrow… a really bleak, and decidedly dark future. The movie kicks off with Man#1 (played by Zac Efron) attempting to catch a ride out to “The Compound”. A land of opportunities apparently… of hard work but possibly honest money. Maybe even a chance to start over for this single man trying to survive in this post apocalyptic hellscape. Eventually, he’s given a ride by Man#2. And out into the barren sand beyond they go. There is a little bit of conversation as we go, some world building on the radio about the potential of a war that might be coming. But mostly, you soak up the reality of this world from the dunes, the grit, the flies… oh my, the incessant flies. Eventually, when Man#1 takes a turn at the wheel – his curiosity about the air conditioning, which he’s told by Man#2 not to touch because it’ll cause the engine to overheat. But does #1 list? Nope. And after three total seconds – the engine collapses.
The two men stop to work on the engine – and while #1 was wandering about, he discovers a fairly massive vein of gold. #1 realizes he can’t very well keep this a secret from #2, so he let’s him know what he found. The two men try and dig it out – and even try to tow it out after fixing the engine. So here’s the glitch. These two men, are sitting out here on this vast desert plain together. The gold is on the ground, tantalizingly close, and yet immovable. What do they do? #2 knows where he can get an excavator… so they decide, #1 will stay with the gold and guard it. I mean. We will talk quite a bit about gold poisoning when we talk about the morality tale that is Gold… but this can only be described as a ridiculously stupid choice. Leaving a man behind to guard gold that has been sitting here for millennia? It literally makes zero sense.
And over the next week or so, Zac Efron bakes in the sun – goes insane in the sun’s heat – and generally is spiritually tormented by the demon that is the gold. He is forced to fight the dogs off. He watches as other trucks zoom by as he cowers in fear of being discovered. But the most significant interaction he has in his half microwaved brain, is with a woman. A local. Definitely a seasoned veteran of the area. Man#1 is out at the ruins of an airplane, salvaging parts to help give himself shelter at his “camp” by the gold when she arrives. Instantly though, she knows that something is up. It’s not like Man#1 is in any sort of position to play a high rounds stake of life and death poker. He is in desperate need of food, and in worse need of water. And when she calls him out as being suspicious, he kills her with a single swing to the head.
He buries her, but the dogs dig her back out. Then he burns her body. Which, I guarantee you, wouldn’t have worked in real life. He had like 12 sticks. But whatever. After a call from Man#2, he realizes the delays are getting longer and longer. As the heat turns to sauna, the wind brings a dust storm that takes everything from horrible to a full tilt eleven. Curious how bad it could possibly get? The tree marking the spot where the gold was? Gets knocked down, and blows away. His lean-to shelter? Gone. And, to top it all off? Man#1 is impaled by a branch, because of course he was. He wakes, spitting blood, and covered in a mound of sand and dirt. This guy is a shade of a shade of a shade of his past self at this point. It’s actually quite rough to watch even. In the aftermath of the storm, Man#1 isn’t sure what is real and what isn’t anymore. And after the storm, he is visited by a woman that looks like the ghost of the woman who died. What is going on??
Eventually we are informed that this is in fact her sister – but eventually she leaves, even if she was Man#1’s last lifeline. Man#1 gets one more call from Man#2, wherein Man#2 let’s him know that he’s close. But Man#1 can’t quite seem to keep the dogs at bay, and eventually succumbs to being eaten… alive… by the five or six dogs that have been eyeballing him for days now. Worse? We learn that Man#2 has been waiting on the ridge for Man#1 to just give up the ghost and leave the enormous gold nugget to himself. Wait, is that the end? Man#2 gets the gold? Not quite, because when he finally heads down to the camp to check on Man#1’s dead body, he is caught in the heart with a crossbow bolt. Roll credits.
Gold – An Australian Morality Tale
Alright, so what just happened here? We are catered to a gloriously apocalyptic film with more dirt and sand per square inch than has ever been seen before on the silver screen. The end of the world has come and we realize that most of the world’s populations have gone too. What caused the end of the world? We don’t know, and we are never told. Do we need to know? No, no we don’t. But we can surmise that it was caused by our own selfishness and world-killing-scale-greed. Whether it was global warming, or World War III, I’m sure it was caused by our senseless greed. And we can know that because we can see how these two men operate.
“But wait – it’s a morality tale?” “Well, um, yeah. Don’t you see it as one?” “Can’t say that I do… it’s just two guys in a postapocalyptic world who have really bad luck.” “Well, that’s definitely one way of looking at the film.” “Alright, no need to get pissy here, if you think there is a moral, why don’t you just lay it on us instead getting all pedantic on us.” “Oh snap… pedantic? Wow.”
So the gold? Is a metaphor. Have you ever heard of how trappers would catch monkey by drilling a hole in a coconut and putting a little bit of food in there. The monkey comes along, puts its hand in the hole of the coconut, and then grabs the food. But when he goes to pull his hand out of the hole? It won’t fit. Why? Because it’s closed doofus. It’s a fist. The monkey can’t both grab the food AND pull its hand from the hole at the same time. It’s not possible. So, instead of letting go of the food, he refuses to let go, and he gets caught. Stupid monkey, no? Hahahaha. You and I are just as stupid, just in more complicated ways. See how Man#1 and Man#2 operate here. First, what is more important in this land of sand and dirt? Gold? Or water? It’s just unbelievable how this gold-poisoning corrupts from the first moment Man#1 sees it. Again, it’s just a metaphor. Money is literal power, and it corrupts completely. I really think this is so obvious, it becomes extraordinarily trite to push it any further. Man#1 is the monkey trapped with its hand in the coconut. I am actively constraining myself from waxing eloquent about Das Kapital, Karl Marx, and the evils of capitalism and how it devours human capital.
Man#1 was a deadman the first moment he spotted that gold. It poisoned him to any sort of rational thought. It forced him into this downward spiral that eventually ended with him murdering a woman, and then being eaten alive.