The Road (Film)

I was just looking over the review I wrote of Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road and realize I could apply it to the film version, directed by John Hillcoat. It's that close to the book. I'm not sure that that's the best thing for the film, though. This is a faithful adaptation, sure to please those who loved the book and are looking for a cinematic recreation of it, but to those who haven't read the book it might seem a little empty.

The script is by Joe Penhall, but large chunks of the book have been simply transcribed, including the only description of the cataclysm that has rendered the Earth a wasteland: "a large shear of light, and a series of low concussions." Presumably it was a nuclear war, as the sky is perpetually gray, an indication of nuclear winter, and the ground is frequently covered with ash.

The main characters are a man and his son, not named. Viggo Mortensen is the former and Kodi Smit-McPhee the latter. The boy's mother, Charlize Theron, chose to commit suicide rather than face the end of mankind, but the man is resolute in doing all he can to make sure the boy survives. Mortensen's acting challenge is laser-focused: no need to ask what his motivation is.

As the story commences, the pair are moving to the coast. In the book the reason for this is better explained--it's to move south to warmer climate. There are no animals, except for insects, and the vegetation is all dead, so finding food is a struggle. They raid old buildings for scraps of food, while others have resorted to cannibalism. The man is determined that he and his son are "the good guys," and "carry the fire," which could be interpreted as the spark of humanity, or for the more religious, the spark of the divine. The boy, somehow, is altruistic, and bears certain similarities to the Christ child, a beacon of hope in an otherwise bleak landscape.

As with the book, the story unfolds episodically. They encounter a roving band of bad guys, find a horror-filled basement, meet an old man (Robert Duvall) who thinks the boy might be an angel (the old man is named Eli, another religious symbol), and find a bomb shelter full of food. There are more flashbacks to Mortensen's life with Theron than in the book, and this gives the film an extra dimension, as the man is also coping with the torture of his memory. The boy, born after the event, knows nothing of life before, and is surprised by a can of Coke.

This sounds strange, but the film looks great. Some of the tableau are breathtaking--a dilapidated gas station, an ocean liner washed ashore, a burning office building. I don't know if that's CGI, I guess it must be, but it's stunning. The photography by Javier Agguiresaroba is award-worthy, given that he's working with shades of gray. Even the blood spilled is dark. Only once do we see bright colors--a rainbow in a waterfall.

The film ends just as the book does, with a ray of hope. I suppose it would have to, otherwise there would be no point to the whole thing, it would just be everybody dies eventually, which of course it does for all of us and everything. But that doesn't make a very good subject for a movie. As Emily Dickinson wrote: "Hope is the thing with feathers—That perches in the soul—And sings the tune without the words—And never stops—at all—"

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