I’m gonna preface this by saying that I’m in no way, shape or form, a true reviewer of any kind. I love the movies, I love books, and I like to talk about what I love about them. That’s pretty much it. I’m not going to deconstruct ‘The Road,’ in either form, and I’m not going to lay out the entire plot for you. All I want to do is get across a few points, and why I think people should see the movie and read the book. I’ll save the name-calling and bashing for something that deserves it. Instead, today, you get nice rxsheepxr.
Halfway through reading Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road,’ Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction in 2007, I found out there was going to be a movie version. I’m not one of those people who gets pissy when everything becomes a movie; instead I embrace it. If it’s something good, I always want more of it, and across different medium. A problem that did arise, however, was how the hell were they going to do it? Aside from finding out the director and leading actor, I decided to not delve too much into the movie process, to let it go by without scouring the internet for tidbits on the shooting or behind-the-scene scoops. I just wanted to let this thing happen. I knew that the acting side of things was in good hands, as soon as I heard Viggo would be the lead I knew he was perfect for it, and to be honest, after seeing the movie I can’t think of anyone else more fitting. On the flipside I knew nothing of the director John Hillcoat, aside from his work on ‘The Proposition,’ which I hadn’t seen.
So they filmed it, and thus began the percolation. The movie’s North American release date was originally supposed to be November 26, 2008. With that date locked in, I waited. Eventually it was postponed to October 16, 2009. Frustrating, sure, but whatever. Once again, however, it was further delayed to November 25, 2009. By the time I finally got to see the thing it was over a year after its original intended release date. It was a long wait, and unfortunately, I’d missed out on seeing it when it played at the Toronto International Film Festival last year. But now the wait’s over; I’ve seen it, and I wanna talk about how worth the wait it really was.
A lot of people were concerned that the style of this book would lose a lot of its charm in translation from print to film. It’s hard to say that it’s charming at all, really, but anyone who’s read the book can tell you it’s at least quite unique. There are no quotation marks in the dialogue, no chapter breaks, and the style is simple. You can tell when reading it that Cormac McCarthy wasn’t sitting at his writing desk with an open thesaurus at his side, looking for smart-sounding adjectives to pepper into every page ad infinitum (which is completely unnecessary, Stephanie Meyer.) No, Cormac never felt the need to prove he’s a smart writer, it just comes across in his straight-forward relating of what could easily be misconstrued as a typical tale of a father and son versus the world.
I’ve got quite an affinity for any post-apocalyptic media. Hell, like just about every other hack out there I’m even writing my own zombie book, so the material is nothing new to me. What makes ‘The Road’ (the book and film) so unique, is that it’s one of the more realistic mainstream post-apocalyptic works I’ve ever experienced. Unfortunately, that’s a rare thing in modern cinema. I loves me some zombie apocalypse, but for every ‘The Road’, there’s a dozen ‘Doomsdays,’ a dozen more ‘Dawn of the Dead’ rip-offs, and even more ‘Mad Maxes.’ I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with any of those at all, but there’s a specific formula these kinds of movies tend to follow, and luckily for us, ‘The Road’ follows none of those. Realism generally gets tossed aside, but ‘The Road’ embraces realism, grinds it under its own fingernails, gets it stuck like sand in its teeth and caked into its pores. Cormac has completely eschewed the pomp and relentless action and makes us suffer along with the father and son in such menial tasks as building fires and scavenging for a shoe to wear, and makes our very souls smile with what would normally be a trivial moment such as finding an in-tact can of Coca-Cola to share in a colorless, lifeless, bleak world.
This post-apocalyptic landscape is certainly its own character here. There’s never any reason given as to what caused the apocalypse, and we never really feel we need one. Polluted water, irradiated soil, earthquakes, thick ash in the air and on the ground, and ever persistent winter, dead trees falling at random… it’s a perfect storm of a hazardous, unforgiving environment. This all adds up to give us a respect for the father and son for persisting in this world, for surviving as long as they have. We’re tossed into the fray with very little back story, treated from time to time to small explanations by way of short flashbacks and voiceovers from Viggo. We follow them around every corner, under every tree, in every step. We share their losses, their defeats, their encounters with the ever-present threats; and we relish in their rare happy moments.
The father will do anything for his son. Anything. They’ve got this pact, which I feel would be a shame to completely spoil, but it’s essentially in which the boy is taught that if things get their bleakest, their two remaining bullets would be better spent on themselves than on anything else. At least this way they’d be together. The scene where we learn about this lesson is quite chilling, and sets an early tone for the depression that follows. Let’s make no bones about it, this movie emotionally exhausted me. I’m not a crier, and I never shed a tear for the film whatsoever, but I shuddered many times, and felt on the verge of tears many times. Which, for me, is pretty much crying. Their pact is a heartbreaking and increasingly likely potential end to this story.
Having read the book, I’m very glad to say that there is very little deviation from the book to the movie, they’ve crafted the movie around the simple, yet complex book in such a way that not a single plot point is missed, all while remaining a movie full of beats, acts, and shreds of hope. Viggo is perfect in his role, and Kodi Smitt-McPhee plays the boy with a great maturity that’s rare for such a young actor. It’s always easy to like a child actor when they’re cute, but Kodi felt ‘real.’ There were times when the boy felt a little too ‘whiny’, but I thought about it and realized he was probably more mature about the situation than I would have been. I would have likely curled into a ball and sucked my thumb as soon as the world erupted in flames.
Again, having read the book, I knew what to expect as far as the story and characters go. There were no real surprises for me other than a couple of small character parts in which I’d no idea who the actors were going to be. Robert Duvall is excellent in his small role, and Guy Pearce is almost unrecognizable in his. Charlize Theron’s character wasn’t really in the book, so to speak, and pretty much exists in flashbacks. Her character is pretty much the only thing about the movie I had any problems with. I tried hard to find fault with the movie, and that’s the only thing I could admit to. I love Charlize Theron in just about anything she’s in, even the crapfests like ‘Aeon Flux,’ and ‘The Road’ is no different. She’s got an old Hollywood style, but isn’t afraid to get dirty, either. I suppose it’s not ‘her’ I had an issue with, but more her character. Having no literary basis for that character made her feel out of place for me, but I understand there needed to be some flashback fodder for the audience to learn the back story. I get that, but I ultimately questioned her characters motives and the abruptness of her actions and decisions were questionable. I felt a little lost when it came to her character, but perhaps that was the point, given that Viggo’s character had the same reaction. Then again, that’s a very minor complaint and did I’d never take points away for it.
For someone who hasn’t read the book it’s easy to assume that ‘The Road’ might have more action than it does, more chases, more explosions, but that’s just not the kind of film it is. This isn’t a popcorn action eye-rape spectacle. It’s also not high art. It’s somewhere in the middle. It’s a movie for people who don’t need to be cheered up by a Hollywood ending. It’s a movie for people who don’t mind a movie affecting their emotions in ways they might not have felt from a movie before. ‘The Road’ isn’t ‘Mad Max.’ ‘The Road’ isn’t ‘Doomsday.’ ‘The Road’ is ‘The Road,’ no comparisons needed. The only saccharine that exists in this movie is in the single can of Coca-Cola the characters find.
I’m really hoping the film version of ‘The Road’ will eventually find it’s audience as with the book version. It’s currently got an overall rating on imdb.com of 8.1/10, and is tracking at 72% at rottentomatos.com. Unfortunately it’s not going to be a big money-maker, and ultimately may not see its budget made back; but the movie exists, it’s out there, and it’s a better world of film for it. The music by Nick Cave (yes, that Nick Cave) and Warren Ellis (no, not that Warren Ellis) is fantastic, hitting all the right cues and swells to accentuate meaningful moments in the film. Some people might argue that the music is abused to prompt response from the audience, but to me that just means they’re doing their job. The cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe was breathtaking at times; a few silhouetted shots spring to mind especially. Director John Hillcoat has taken this book, beloved by millions of fans, and turned it into a very admirable film. He’s done his job very well, and I defy anyone to see this movie after having read the book, and point out obscene liberties any other director might have taken. Hillcoat respects the material, and one interview with Viggo Mortensen revealed that Cormac McCarthy, no stranger to having his books adapted into films (‘No Country for Old Men’ being the first that springs to mind) gave Hillcoat his blessing on the film, and that he was quite pleased with the result. The thing to take away from this is that if you’ve read the book and loved it, you’ll likely feel the same way about the film. If you haven’t read the book, prepare for a heartbreaking time.
I don’t really like to rate movies with a number or grade, but I think I have to sum it up, just so there’s no misunderstandings here. More or less for the people who want to skip my rambling and get to the point. So, if you’ve read the book, the movie is easily 4.5 out of 5 stars. It’s bleak, heartbreaking, eerily real, terrifying at times, and has just enough hope that we can really invest our emotions into the characters. If you haven’t read the book, I’m thinking you’ll give it a solid 3.5 out of 5 stars, simply because I do know a lot of people that went into the movie thinking it was going to have a whole lot more action. They weren’t necessarily disappointed or anything, but they expected something different, that’s all.
But yeah, 4.5 out of 5, I’m sticking with that.
So that’s about it, I don’t want to spoil any key scenes or the ending. I just love that there’s a movie like this amidst the Harry Potters and Twilights and Avatars of the world. I haven’t seen a movie that hit me this hard since ‘District 9,’ and before that ‘Children of Men.’ In fact, I’d liken ‘The Road’ to ‘Children of Men’ if it weren’t for the fact that ‘Children of Men’ had hope in spades compared to ‘The Road.’ So before I ramble myself into oblivion, I want to point out that this is my first article for NerdSociety, and I’d like to thank Cricket for inviting me to write for the site. I’d also like to thank anyone that read through all this as I know it’s quite long-winded; I just felt I had a lot to gush about with ‘The Road.’ Seriously, folks, if you’re into realistic post-apocalypse scenarios, or just human drama, check the flick out. You could do a whole lot worse at the cinema right now. At the very least read the book, there’s nothing else like it out there. I’m not saying either are perfect, but you owe it to yourself to check out something heavy once in a while.
Until next time.
rxsheepxr
All images used are copyright 2009 The Weinstein Company.
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