The Road

The Road, is John Hillcoat's adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name. Hillcoat was the director of 2005's moody western, The Proposition and he really brings the moodiness to this latest film that tells the very bleak, despairing story of a father and son.

Something has happened to the world, leaving it in smoldering ashes. Only a few survivors are left, scrounging for food and trying desperately to stay alive. A man (Viggo Mortenson) travels the roads with his son (played by Kodi Smit-McPhee). They are starving to death, and hope seems to slowly fade away. Cannibalism is very rampant in this new world, and the man uses all his strength to protect his son from the horrors of the road. Everyday, the man faces a decision: Does he follow his wife and commit suicide with his son, or does he cling to the hope that they can find a safe place in this horrible world?

Hillcoat does a good job of bringing the story and world of the novel to the big screen. Of course there are differences, which we will get to in a bit, but the technical aspects of the film are well done. The surrounding areas look very burned out, and the sky and ocean is gray. The only colors in the film come from fires that spontaneously erupt from the ground and, curiously, cans of food. Fire and food, messengers of hope? I liked The Proposition, and Hillcoat is starting to really come into his own with a very unique style of directing.

But it is the performaces that really drive the film. Mortenson has always been an actor who really jumps into a role and he does here with abandon. Apparently, he would sleep outside for days in the same clothes to get the appearance of a homeless man and starve himself to lose weight. Viggo has one of those faces that brings great presence to the screen, see his roles in Lord of the Rings and History of Violence. He also provides a voice-over for a few scenes of the movie, and his voice lends itself very well. If Mortenson is good, Smit-McPhee is amazing. He really delivers as the main focus of the film. I cannot imagine how hard it is for a child actor to play this part. This is a serious movie, and required a lot of intensity for the role. Charlize Theron plays the boy's mother and only appears in flashbacks and does a fine job. Robert Duvall has a cameo in the movie and his scenes are very memorable. You get the feeling when Mortenson is sharing the scene with Duvall, Viggo understands he is working with one of the all-time greats. And Duvall is probably the best performance in the movie, doing so much with so little.

The film shows a lot of flashbacks to before the son is born. This is quite different from the novel, and I feel makes the movie inferior to the book in a huge way. The novel focused solely on the father and son. By bringing the mother more prominently into the movie, it feels like a bit of the focus shifted from the man and son to the man and his wife, and weakens the main story.

I remember reading The Road for the first time. I was still new to McCarthy's works. I picked up the book at the library during my lunch break, and was finished by 8pm that night. It was an amazing read. McCarthy's writing is simple, but very course, much like a post-apocalyptic Ernest Hemingway. The beauty of the novel is not just the story but the way it is written. This is something which is lost in the film translation.

Overall, The Road is a good movie. And I like it. But I also do not like it. I think the novel is so superior that upon finishing the movie, I felt disappointed. The performances are still amazing to see though, and it is well worth watching. As a father myself, I do not feel I can watch this movie again. It is a very heavy movie, at times utterly depressing. But at the end of the film, there is still that flame, that "fire" of hope to hold on to.

**Bonus points to who can tell me (without looking it up), who plays the man on the beach at the end of the movie. I had no idea until I saw some of the bonus features and the actor was revealed. Very cool.

Grade: B