The world has ended. Ash blankets the ground, wildlife has vanished and human civilization is no more. This is the dreary reality of "The Road," but do not mistake it for a "Day After Tomorrow" (2004) disaster-thriller. Despite the oppressive bleakness of the setting, the film is a poignant tale of a father's love.
Viggo Mortensen stars as a nameless man who roams the post-apocalyptic wasteland alongside his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee). With winter fast approaching, the man leads his son south towards the coast. Some of his only possessions are the clothes on his back and a pistol with two rounds.
"The Road" is a faithful adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's best-selling book of the same title. Director John Hillcoat has painstakingly brought every detail of the blighted world that McCarthy described to the screen. Characters are covered in dirt and grime, the sky is perpetually murky and trash and rubble coat the blasted landscapes. Cannibals threaten the few people still living. Despite this hellish environment, the film never feels visually exaggerated. If the planet were to die, this is surely how it would look.
Mortensen and Smit-McPhee do their best to bring some life to the dead setting. Their performances are strong, though at times a little muted. The love between father and son is the sole light brightening an immensely dark story, and it needs to be as heartfelt and convincing as possible. The two may struggle at times with the somewhat lackluster script, but overall they successfully carry the weight of the film.
The supporting actors also help ease the main characters' burden. The boy's mother, played by Charlize Theron, exists solely in flashbacks which work surprisingly well. The film adds a few new scenes to develop her character, but they fit in with the overall tone of the story and serve as a contrast to the utter desolation of the present day.
While the film's production is fantastic and the jumps between past and present are well executed, a few elements fail to shine. Disjointed cuts from scene to scene that were present in the book don't translate well to the screen. In most instances, the film's respect to its source material is a strength, but loyalty to the book disrupts the flow of the film in these moments.
The pacing and blocking feel a little clumsy in some of the more action-packed sequences. With so much screen time devoted to wandering through bleak environments, each burst of action needs to be exceptional in order to keep propelling the story. The scenes work, but they don't wow.
The inclusion of an orchestral score is also a bit heavy-handed. The lack of music in "No Country For Old Men" (2007), another adaptation of a McCarthy novel, served the movie well and could have been equally effective in "The Road."
Despite these issues, the film is captivating for its two-hour duration. The story works best when the man and his son, who have nothing but each other, are in danger of losing even that. One of the most powerful scenes finds the two trapped inside a building that has been turned into a human slaughterhouse. As one of the cannibals heads up the stairs to the protagonists' hiding place, the man holds a gun to his child's head, ready to shoot him rather than let the boy be cut up and eaten alive. McCarthy's novel includes even darker, more gruesome imagery that was not used in the film, but what is shown is fittingly haunting.
"The Road" is not a movie that everyone will enjoy. Its R rating is well deserved because of the film's intensity, violence and horror. Cannibalism is rampant, as are shots of mangled bodies, organs and skeletons. The film is a disturbing portrait of the worst elements of human beings pitted against the best. The vile, desperate actions of the roving bands of murderers and cannibals show just how far human beings can sink, but they also help strengthen the importance of the bond between the man and his son. While "The Road" may not be 2009's best film, it definitely succeeds as an adaptation of 2006's best novel.
