”She was gone and the coldness of it was her final gift.”
Will the world end with a bang or a whimper? According to Roland Emmerich, the world will end with a shit-ton of bangs. In the shadow of Emmerich’s bloated and idiotic 2012 comes The Road, a haunting experience and a post-apocalyptic film like no other. The Road isn’t an action spectacle like Mad Max nor is it the misstep that was I Am Legend, which completely missed the point of Richard Matheson’s original story. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Cormac McCarthy, The Road features the same desperate isolation that marked the Coen Brothers’ adaptation of No Country For Old Men times a hundred.
Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee star as an unnamed father and son who are simply dubbed Man and Boy in the credits. The pair tries to survive in a desolate wasteland where the skies have turned to ash and the landscape is littered with dead trees and abandoned roads. The Boy has been born into this nightmarish world and knows nothing of life before. The Man tells stories to his son about heroes and bravery. He insists they are the “good guys” and that they “carry the fire” inside. As they attempt to make their way to the coast, the Man must protect the boys from the horrors he sees including roving bands of bandits who’ve turned to cannibalism to survive. In one of the film’s most harrowing moments, father and son come across a house where human beings are kept locked in a basement, filthy and emaciated, so their jailers can feed on them, piece by piece. Just as these people have gone to horrible lengths simply to survive, the Man becomes as equally desperate to keep his son alive. The Boy still manages to cling to his innocence, believing that there is still inherent good in others.
No explanation is ever given for the end of the world and none is necessary. There are a series of flashbacks showing the Man and his wife (Charlize Theron) briefly before the devastation and later scenes showing them dealing with the aftermath and her pregnancy. An almost unrecognizable Robert Duvall makes a quick and unforgettable appearance as an old, blind man they meet on their journey.
I haven’t read the original novel by McCarthy, so I can’t compare the two. Director John Hillcoat (who helmed the equally somber and desolate Western The Proposition) fashions a deals with the heights that man can reach and the depths in which he will sink. The Road is all about human emotion and not special effects or camera mugging performances. Mortensen and Smit-McPhee are fantastic and utterly believable in their roles. We become as frightened as they are and feel that same tiny moment of joy when the two find a lone can of Coca-Cola.
The way the film unfolds will leave many divided. Some have criticized it saying The Road hops from scene to scene without much flow or driving force. Yes, the script by playwright Joe Penhall does meander. But, it meanders just as the characters that inhabit the world, making it a natural fit. The Road isn't the classic that many were hoping for, but it's a damn good movie.
Rating: ***
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