THE ROAD (2009)

Cormac McCarthy is flavour of the month at the moment. After the Coen Brothers' lauded adaptation of his novel No Country For Old Men you can't swing a cat at the moment without hitting another fan coming out of the woodwork. In fact this week, it was announced that James Franco will be behind the camera for an imagining of Blood Meridian. Among all of this hoopla John Hillcoat quietly went about his business bringing McCarthy's bleak tale The Road to the big screen.



Viggo Mortensen plays a nameless father trying to protect his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) in an apocalyptic world after an unexplained disaster has left the planet barren and desolate while a select few survivors scavenge, kill and do whatever it takes to stay out of harms way. A real bundle of laughs then.

I read the book recently for the first time on holiday (interesting choice for beach-reading) and if you ever want an example of a director being completely faithful to the source material, then this is it. McCarthy leaves the origins of the disaster unsaid, and it takes a brave man to take the same tack with the film in today's age of the idiot viewer (in this case John Hillcoat, a music video director known for working with a Nick Cave). The plot then progresses in exactly the same way as the book as the father and son encounter a host of characters and situations that put them into perilous situations, but without much really actually happening. For a film about the end of the world, there is no big action set pieces, no race against time, no damsel in distress to save. This isn't popcorn fodder, 2012 fans should look elsewhere.

The story is essentially just about the father and son, as they journey towards in the coast, with the slim, vague hope that something will be different there. Stripped down, it is fundamentally a character piece exploring the paternal relationship, but also, more importantly what it means to be human. The boy constantly needing reassurances that he and his father are 'the good guys' and struggling to understand why the people they encounter won't help them and vice versa. As things become more desperate for the pair, the child's idealism comes into conflict with the father's willingness to do anything to keep them both alive. The film poses the question 'what lengths would you go to to survive, and at what cost?'. It's an interesting theme for the film to be based around and is very affecting.

At the centre of it are excellent performances from Mortensen (as you would expect) and Smit-McPhee even more so. He will be better known for the recent Let Me In but this was his real breakthrough and is far more impressive in this turn. Both are utterly believable in their roles, Mortensen unrelenting in his desperation to protect his son, while Smit-McPhee's trust in his father never wavers. There are nice moments where they find small joy in tins of food or a cuddly toy where there are flickers of what normal life once was, but these quickly evaporate as we have to endure a scene where the father teaches his son how to kill himself if the need arises. Charlize Theron also features as the mother/wife in various flashbacks that offer some background to the family and how it came to just be the two of them. These scenes are a nice contrast to the bulk of the film, with splashes of colour and touching moments that really offer depth to the central relationship but also yank at the heart strings. The legend that is Robert Duvall also turns up which is a nice treat.

If there is a criticism to be had, it's that it is a very tough watch. It's very bleak and dark throughout with very little hope, and culminates in a heart breaking ending that offers very little relief and resolution, to both the story and humanity - both McCarthy and the film clearly don't have a lot of faith if the end of the world were to occur.

However, just because it isn't full of optimism and light, it should not mean that you should not see it. Beautifully acted, excellently made, thought provoking and arresting. Perseverance will bring you massive rewards.