Movie Review: The Road
In a holiday season where the movie going public will be inundated with flashy, special effects laden fare, it’s nice to see a bleak, tear jerking slice of despair brought to us straight from the pages of a Pulitzer prize winning author’s latest opus, The Road. The author in question is, of course, Cormac McCarthy, the best writer of his generation or the past several. I won’t go on about my admiration for McCarthy, who I’ve mentioned here on the site before, but will instead focus on the film, a noteworthy effort and a triumph for all involved, from director John Hillcoat, to the principles, Viggo Mortenson, in the role of unnamed father, and newcomer Cody Smit-Mcphee, in that of the son. Together, the two are traveling across a ravaged American landscape, moving south, heading for the coast, in the wake of some catastrophic event that has ended life as we know it. Nuclear war, perhaps? We never find out, and the knowledge is unimportant anyway. There are no resources left, and roving bands of cannibals prey upon any weaker survivors. We don’t know how long its been since everything went to hell, but things must have deteriorated quickly. The source material is stuck to pretty closely; the father and son don’t meet a lot of other survivors, meaning that there’s a lot of screen time with just Viggo and Mcphee, but the two of them play very well off each other. We get some flashbacks with the mother that add some needed background, but to see Viggo’s raw despair at having to take care of his son under such circumstances, watching his innocence quickly fade, is a powerful experience, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get an Oscar nod.
At the end of two hours’ time, what makes this movie so successful is how truthfully and brutally McCarthy (and Hillcoat) examine human nature and find it both lacking, and measuring up to its lofty ideals. If an event such as the one that took place here were to actually befall us, one would like to hope that the dregs would draw together and try to rebuild society. If resources were so limited, though, it would in no way be an exaggeration to think that within a few months we’d all be decked out in war paint and eating each other. Humans are animals too, after all, and when our desire to be otherwise is challenged, believe me, hunger and survival instinct are going to be what wins out. Still, the other side of it, the nobility displayed by Viggo’s character, are present to, and always will be. That is why The Road matters: it is a harsh judgment but a fair one, and this is a cinematic effort worthy of attention, just as the novel was. There are elements at play here we might not necessarily want to think about, and because of that, it is all the more important that we do so. My rating: 7/10.
December 24th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
I agree with your review completely, though I have to say, when the boy’s new family appeared with the dog (which the boy had heard snuffling about above the fallout shelter earlier), I knew for sure I was being jerked around, but started weeping anyway. There’s no mention of a dog in the novel, but hey, it’s still Hollywood.