Well, this is ever bit as depressing as it is good.
The Road (2009)
Directed By: John Hillcoat (The Proposition)
The Prologue
I think a lot of people will agree with me when I say that Cormac McCarthy writes some pretty interesting and powerful stuff. Having only seen the movies and read the books for No Country For Old Men and this film right here, The Road. I have noticed that his tales seems to be very tragic, but yet seem to not completely leave you without hope in the end. However, having that same feeling and quality transferred over to the big screen is a horse of a different color, and while The Coen Brothers did a great job with No Country For Old men, it remained to be seen how well John Hillcoat could do with The Road.
And I think what we get with the end results are a film, that while not perfect, is very gut wrenching and very well worth seeing.
The Movie
The Road is a post-apocalyptic tale of a man and his son trying to survive after it’s very clear the world as we know it has ended. Why has this happened? Well that reason is left up to your own imagination as it never states this reason in the book either. Also keeping with the book the father and son have no names in this tale. As a matter of fact, no one seems to have a name. Now that may seem odd in ways, but I’ll be damn if it doesn’t work.
The setting of the film is very dark, very grimy, and very depressing. The depressing feel is sadly a feeling that never leaves the screen as we are witness to the hardship of what both a man and his son are dealing with just trying to survive in a world gone to hell and we see what they have lost as well with several flashbacks that happen throughout the film. And as the movie movies forward you have to wounder the same as the man and his son do on screen if they wouldn’t just be better off dead. The issue of either ending it now or “keeping the fire” is one that is dealt with time and time again in this sad film.
The movie also keeps you on the edge of your seat time and time again with suspense as the father and son run up against groups of crazed people who are probably cannibals as well. Finding the “good” and the “bad” people still left in the world and knowing how to tell one from another has clearly became a problem since the world pretty much ended leaving all animals dead and causing some folks to reach the point of eating each other when the food runs dry.
While the film is pretty much always on the father and son (with great performances from Kodi Smit-McPhee and Viggo Mortensen). Robert Duvall and Charlize Theron are around to for small but memorable roles. Theron of course only appears in flashbacks as the now dead wife and mother to the father and son, and Duvall is simple just an old man the two meet as they continue their path south.
However, as good and attention grabbing as this film is, it sadly is by no means perfect. I think their are a couple things that kinda hurt it. One being a flashback showing the more sexual side of the past relationship with the father and mother. While I know that was there just to show how he longs for his wife, I think it could have been done in a slightly better way. As I feel this way just sorta seems out of place with the rest of the movie. Also while the ending is as true as rain to the book, I didn’t REALLY like the sudden end of the book either. I found it to be a little bit of a let down (While yet not all the way hopeless), and while you know it’s heading the way it does, it does seem to just kinda stop.
The Conclusion
One of the better films I’ve seen in a long long time and now after seeing Kodi Smit-McPhee in this and hearing everyone talk about Chloe Moretz in Kick-Ass maybe I now have some sorta, well shall I say hope, for Let Me In. Which of course is the remake of the classic Let The Right One In.
But as far as The Road goes, I think you’ll like it but I also think you may need a bottle of anti-depressants with you as you watch it.
The Rating (8/10)
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