THE ROAD
ICON
RELEASED 8 January 2010
Based on the critically-applauded and very popular Cormac McCarthy novel, ‘The Road’ is the tale of a father and son struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic America. The ‘road’ is the path they are following south, hoping to find warmer climes and blue seas, away from the cold, white skies and scorched earth that chips away at their humanity. On their journey they encounter other survivors, scraping to eke out something that could be called a life. Most have resorted to cannibalism, torture, and murder. Kindness and charity seem to have been scratched away, leaving a black imprint of mankind in it’s place.
Viggo Mortensen plays ‘The Man’, and Kodi Smit McPhee plays ‘The Boy’. Nobody has a name in this cold future. We also meet ‘Wife’ (Charlize Theron), ‘The Old Man’ (Robert Duvall), and ‘The Thief’ (‘The Wire’s Michael K. Williams, known as street-hero Omar). It’s essentially a two-person road trip, with these other faces (and much worse) popping up along the way. The Man attempts to keep The Boy away from danger, with the odd engagement becoming too close for comfort.
This is probably the most depressing movie (at least from Hollywood) you’re likely to see all year. It’s bleak, sad, and scary. It’s incredibly faithful to the book, so much so that I do find it difficult to review on it’s own terms. I was never surprised or particulary moved, but then if you asked me what I felt when I read the book, just nine months ago, I’d say it was one of the best books I’ve ever read, and it made me emotional at regular intervals. So I’d say the film will probably affect you in a similar way if you’re coming to it fresh.
I can safely talk about the acting with conviction. Viggo Mortensen is fantastic as The Man. I knew he was cast in the film when I read the book, but even so, I doubt any other actor is committed or true-of-heart to play the character quite like he does. I didn’t feel much for The Boy unfortuantely. Smit McPhee does a perfectly decent job, but I felt no empathy for him, and I actually found him a little bit whiny. Not the way I read him in the book. And Charlize Theron definitely has a boosted role in the movie compared to her tiny part in the book. I don’t think it was necessary, but she doesn’t harm the film in any way. All other roles in the film are perfectly cast, and a well-known and very good actor appears briefly at the end who I barely recognised.
For a film concerned with script and human emotion, it seems churlish to bring it up, but some of the wasteland effects work was a bit shaky, and I didn’t feel the film needed a score soundtrack (a moody ambient piece by James Newton Howard).
Director John Hillcoat and screenwriter Joe Penhall have filmed an indisputably faithful and powerful adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Whether it finds an audience in the multiplexes like the book has done on shelves worldwide, I’m not sure. The film will hold up for years to come though, and is a fine acheivement from all concerned.
FOUR OUT OF FIVE