Starring Michael Shannon and Nicholas Hoult. Rated PG.

No, it’s not a remake of the ’60s Cliff Richard vehicle. Yes, the title is a somewhat curious dodge, since this new film from Jake Paltrow (Gwyneth’s little brother) is no summer holiday, even if the heat and the sun are relentless.

Set in the near future, it looks like civilization is collapsing all over again, turning at least one part of the world—an arid stretch of the States where water is the premium commodity—into a black subsistence economy always on the edge of lawlessness. We saw the same premise recently in The Well (not so good) and we’ll see it again in a couple of weeks via Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (reviews pending). Then, in 20 years or so, we’ll probably see it in real life. Kudos to Paltrow and his technical team for a convincing and totally depressing glimpse at the world my kids might be inheriting.

Still and all, Young Ones is above-average cinema sci-fi, with something like the elegiac mood of Silent Running. That 1972 classic is invoked in some ways by the amazing and oddly melancholy robot donkey that farmer Ernest Holm (Michael Shannon) uses to undertake supply runs for the quasi-criminal gang controlling the area’s water supply. He’s a deep and taciturn single dad with a tragic past—or the perfect Shannon character, if you like—determined to revive his crops.

Matters are complicated by the weaselly and dangerous Flem Lever (Nicholas Hoult), who has a beef with Holm over land rights (or maybe he’s just pissed about being stuck with that name). He also happens to be courting Holm’s daughter, Mary (Elle Fanning, given the film’s one seriously undercooked role).

Ultimately, Young Ones is really about Holm’s son Jerome (Kodi Smit-McPhee), whose observation of the violent drama that ensues sends him on his path to manhood. Paltrow is reaching for something mythic here. If the results are a bit more James Michener than John Ford, it’s not for lack of ambition or style.