The Road (2009)
The Road(USA) Directed by John Hillcoat Written by Joe Penhall Starring Viggo Mortensen; Charlize Theron; Kody Smit-McPhee; Robert Duvall; Guy Pearce; Molly Parker; Michael K. Williams; Garret Dillahunt
Much speculation surrounded the release of Australian director John Hillcoat’s The Road, including reports that last years’ cut of the film had to be re-edited to counteract the bleakness quotient as execs feared audiences would be turned off by a view of a post-apocalyptic America virtually devoid of recognizable humanity. As is, the film remains fairly dire, filled with monochromatic images of a gray, sparsely populated, and largely plant and animal-less landscape as barren as the stomachs and souls of those still inhabiting the earth.
Based on the 2006 award winning novel by Cormac McCarthy (No Country For Old Men; Blood Meridian), Hillcoat and screenwriter (British playwright) Joe Penhall don’t stray far from the source. Though there are invented details added to the mix, the film respects the book’s minimalistic base and narrow scope and includes most of the major plot points. And while it might be said that Hillcoat, directing his fourth feature, never manages to cinematically transcend the book in the way one imagines most successful literary adaptations ultimately accomplishing, there is also something to be said for the concept of fidelity, especially when it comes to re-imagining well-loved/respected work, and if nothing else The Road artfully manages not to besmirch McCarthy’s violent, spare telling.
Whether Hillcoat captures the spirit of the novel is open to debate, but he does well evoking a washed out, burned out, and de-populated America still experiencing traumatic earthquakes and fires years after the undefined and unexplained cataclysmic event. For those who haven’t experienced the novel, the film is largely a two-hander with the ever youthful middle-aged Viggo Mortensen as The Man and young Kodi Smit-McPhee as The Boy. The story is a simple one - the father and son making their way on foot to the warmer coast climate where they hope to connect with other “good people” to start a better life.
Thankfully, Mortensen and newcomer Smith are both excellent and believable together, which is a good thing because the film all but entirely rests on their performances. Charlize Theron has a smaller role as mother and wife, seen in a series of flashbacks, including several color splashed ones highlighting the actresses still stunning beauty, as The Man repeatedly dreams of images and moments of a life that was. Hillcoat also effectively employs name actors like Guy Pearce (fellow Aussie and lead in his previous film, The Proposition); Molly Parker; Michael K Williams (Omar from The Wire); and Robert Duvall in supporting roles that essentially amount to cameos.
To Hillcoat’s and Penhall’s credit, they obviously decided against creating additional facts that might’ve been woven into the dialogue or voiceover (Mortensen) in order to better explain the current world situation, illuminate the specific cause and nature of the catastrophic event, or detail what exactly The Man hopes to find as he and the boy move south toward the ocean. The build is slow and meandering and even the more sensational of the sections have a muted quality to them that do not work either individually or joined together in the way that traditional thrillers, horror, or action flicks usually do. Rather, they serve merely as divergences along a narrative path that trudges forward in the same manner that The Man and The Boy do as they struggle mightily to haul their meager possessions in an old shopping cart, traversing woods, mud, and hills toward a fuzzy future neither can predict.
One of the major themes of the book and the film is the idea of forging ahead despite the negative that so often surrounds us. The concept of suicide as an opt out of the pain, and specifically as a final expedient solution for the boy if the father is killed, is one that is present throughout. Their world is filled with darkness, hunger, and predatory scavengers. The boy stands as a beacon of innocence in a dark and dismal universe, as well as being The Man’s one reason to live. For the boy, his “Papa” is the prism through which he sees the world, his protector and sole source of information about the present and the past. Always looming, however, is the threat of the many rapists, thieves, murderers, and cannibals who roam the terrain in an attempt to prey on whomever and whatever comes in their wake. In an existence fraught with a constant series of very real threats, far removed from any and all modern convenience or comfort, pleasure must be drawn from the simple - finding a rare can of Coke, playing with a small toy, the protection of some new found temporary shelter.
The subject matter, of course, is far from novel, and the film calls to mind others of the type - Time of the Wolf; Mad Max; Waterworld; Stalker; The Stand; Le Dernier Combat; Boy and His Dog; The Quiet Earth- in its painting of a scorched post-apocalyptic world, but the book and films restraint in refusing to overtly tackle broader political or moral questions means that with the exception of several platitude infused moments we as audience avoid the kind of grand pronouncements usually afflicting films of the type. And while several scenes have the kind of scary, frenzied quality of some recent well-known zombie films, the narrative remains in the realm of the real with only the boy’s recitation of his father’s lessons as screed (based on his age, lack of education/ contact with others, and having never experienced the old world) smacking of the mythologizing so prevalent in apocalyptic and dystopic fiction.
While there is a definite flatness here, some of that might be understandably attributable to the depression and sensory deprivation of the beaten down, unwashed, and ill-fed characters, as well as the structure of the very film itself, containing as it does a plot constituted mostly of scenes with The Man and The Boy withstanding multiple life and death challenges as they attempt to survive their journey. The accumulated effect of their harrowing experience on an audience is equivalent to that of a boxer taking one too many jabs in the face, although it should be stressed that there is genuine and deeply felt emotion in the tender father/son connection, the one overriding tactile element of warmth in a desolate, depraved environment populated by the desperate and the deprived - individuals barely clinging to the memory of what made them human in the first place