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The Road (2009) - Trailer Included
The Road - DVD Available
Director: John Hillcoat
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Molly Parker, Kodi Smit-McPhee
"I told the boy when you dream about bad things happening, it means you're still fighting and you're still alive. It's when you start to dream about good things that you should start to worry." - The Man
The Post apocalyptic scenario has been diluted over the years, made to appear akin to a desert island adventure or as a backdrop to enable heroics. Based on the acclaimed novel by Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men), there are few films that have relentlessly adhered to the bleak hopelessness of humanity destroyed as The Road.
Downbeat and delicate it is easy to believe the carefully painted picture by Director John Hillcoat. A desolate atmosphere dictates the cold necessities of survival. A father (Viggo Mortensen) protects his son (Kodi-Smit McPhee) and teaches him the detached truths of self preservation in a world long since annihilated by an unknown cataclysm.
"I will kill anyone who touches you. Because that's my job." - The Man
After 10 years the earth is now a barren wasteland, all wildlife and plants are extinct. All thoughts of luxury are forlorn in the quest for the next meal. Scavenging for food has lead to tribes of cannibals patrolling the countryside. It is these “communities” that pose the biggest danger to the Father and Son who are making their way south via the coastline in hopes of a warmer climate.
"The clocks stopped at one seventeen one morning. There was a long shear of bright light, then a series of low concussions. Within a year there were fires on the ridges and deranged chanting. By day the dead impaled on spikes along the road. I think it's October but I can't be sure. I haven't kept a calender for five years. Each day is more gray than the one before. Each night is darker - beyond darkness. The world gets colder week by week as the world slowly dies. No animals have survived. All the crops are long gone. Someday all the trees in the world will have fallen. The roads are peopled by refugees towing carts and road gangs looking for fuel and food. There has been cannibalism. Cannibalism is the great fear. Mostly I worry about food. Always food. Food and our shoes. Sometimes I tell the boy old stories of courage and justice - difficult as they are to remember. All I know is the child is my warrant and if he is not the word of God, then God never spoke."- The Man
It is a vicious world that has abandoned compassion; the tenderness of human emotion slowly dwindles as the nomadic man and his boy wander in search of fleeting sanctuaries. Isolated and alone, the few people they encounter must be met with paranoid suspicion. Every sign of life must be approached as a potential threat. Their only defense a revolver with 2 bullets reserved for suicide in the face of capture or unbearable starvation.
This is the painful truth. Without law, without technology, without electricity society is reduced to primal creatures walking the planet as we did in the Stone Age.
"That's all we have left. I should have done it a long time ago. I should've done it when we had more bullets. I don't know why I listened to you. They're gonna catch up with us and they're going to kill us. They're gonna rape me, and then they're gonna rape your son and they're gonna kill us and eat us." - The Wife
Father and Son, Man and Boy stand at odds for compassion.
John Doe Says:
Examining our base level behavior and the will for humanity to endure even the harshest trials, The Road is a film designed to immerse rather than entertain. Thoughtful, there is a subtlety to every facet of the film that grounds it in profound honesty. Compelling, it draws you into its minimalistic landscape of Armageddon ravaged civilization. The barren, monochrome grays of the cinematography, the careful framing of intimate moments enabling even the slightest gesture from the central characters to carry weight. We live through their eyes, every breath of tension, glimpse of terror and sigh of relief felt inherently almost instinctual.
Director John Hillcoat (The Proposition, Ghost’s of the Civil Dead) sticks to the original pages of the novel with a dedication to match the Father and Sons need to prevail. Hillcoat’s refusal to speculate on the cause of the annihilation of our planet follows the same intent as the authors. (Super Volcano seems to be the theory.) The themes of the book are all present and his realization of unforgiving mood and allegorical images makes this a very successful screen adaptation. That he manages to infer optimism through the absence of certain beats in what could be seen as a pessimistic story solidifies his lack of cynicism in the work. The ending in particular does feel slightly out of place, but murky hints earlier make it a revelation that could go either way if the story continued.
The evocative cinematography of Javier Aguirresarobe (The Others, Talk To Her) makes for stillness in certain scenes where you can bask in the background details. The post Katrina locations add much to the sullen tragedy, displaced and disheveled vehicles and vessels littering the frame transport you further into the picture.
The plot is secondary to creating full rounded characters that show story instead of tell through exposition in Jo Penhall’s sparse script. Where necessary lifting lines from the source rather than rewording, all his contributions add dimension to the characters. The main difference between book and screen is that the wife, (Charlize Theron) seen in flashback is far more prevalent in the film. The gloomy notes of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ music are so ideally synched to the emotions of the audience that it’s easy to over look the scores merit. The eerie piano keys elevate tension, the paused, lethargic punctuations emotive.
Giving a controlled performance that fluctuates from sheer exhaustion to manic terror Viggo Mortensen (A History of Violence, Eastern Promises) again proves his versatility. When it comes down to it, for the most part the film is a two man show. The rest of the cast are cameos that carry pivotal importance. Never over playing the negative or positive traits of his role makes this a very real study of character. Only referred to as the man, if we weren’t invested in Viggo’s portrayal the film could have been boring.
Playing “The Boy” Aussie child actor Kodi Smit-McPhee (Romulus, My Father) struggles at times with some of the more complex emotions he is forced to channel. Still he does an admirable job in a very demanding position.
Charlize Theron (Arrested Development, The Yards) as ‘The Wife” is adequate, but doesn’t quite come through with the emotional power to inspired the sorrow the part is capable of. Unique to the film, her scenes are shot with a saturated colour that relieves against the grey cinematography of everything else. This kind of mood setting assistance should have made her scenes even more resonate instead we are left with potential tears that never come.
Apocalypse Now screams Duvall.
The film was rescheduled several times, to finish post production work and then to qualify for Oscar consideration>It wasn't until last week that John Doe finally saw the film. Worth the wait, The Road took JD to an alternate reality. Demanding much of its audience but ably providing reward this is an emotional and thoughtful science fiction film that hasn’t left Johnny’s mind since he saw it.
Trailer for The Road
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