The Road

Director: John Hillcoat.

Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron.

Reviewed by Jack Vening.

An unnamed father (Viggo Mortensen) and his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) travel along a dark, wasted post-apocalyptic America in the vague hope of escaping the winter, and the even vaguer hope of finding other "good guys" like themselves. Along the way they’ll find cannibals, killers, a little food, and a lot of cold, dead world.

Adapted from the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Cormac McCarthy (author of No Country for Old Men), The Road is a more refined example in the recent slew of end-of-the-world films (See: 2012). It stays away from the ‘unlikely heroics of a desperate situation’ theme that runs concurrent with the apocalyptic genre, leaving something atavistic, raw, and wholly gripping. The satisfaction here isn’t in the struggle of man over nature; it’s a story of the most basic elements of survival, in which the most comforting ideal is an easy death.

Right from the start The Road stands out as exceptional. Beautiful cinematography and some fantastic performances (especially from the powerful young Smit-McPhee) bring out McCarthy’s story like very few book-to-film adaptations I’ve seen. Some fans of the book will invariably be disappointed by the distinct differences in characterization (in particular, the extended role of The Wife, played by Charlize Theron), though they can’t deny that director John Hillcoat has succeeded in bringing to the screen much of the emotive subtly that drives McCarthy’s work.

Comparisons with the Cohen brother’s adaptation of No Country for Old Men are hard to avoid. The Road is similarly bleak and confronting, and we’re again given very little to go on in terms of explanation, drawing us to the characters as our closest point to home, and making their struggles all the more compelling as a result. As with No Country’, there’s little comforting for the viewer, and we’re kept in a perpetual feeling of danger. The result is hair-raising.

Hillcoat returns with The Road to the concept of "setting as character" which he used to great effect in The Proposition. The world he’s made here is hugely alienating and authentic, despite one or two obvious CG set-pieces that seemed to have slipped in. The score by Nick Cave (again returning to the ambiance of The Proposition) lends the film an almost heart-breaking melancholy, though with an odd, syrupy-sweet final score that seems out of place for both the film and Cave himself.

Gripping, disturbing, simultaneously heartwarming and heart-wrenching, The Road is arguably one of the best apocalyptic films in recent memory. If anything could be said against it, it would be that the almost vignette-like structure to the story could disconnect it somewhat from some viewers, but grab a copy of the book and they’ll realise just how important that structure is.

The best film I’ve seen in a long time.

The Road in cinemas 28 January.

ENDS