Many have been divided about the screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's award-winning novel. As a two hour production, the film doesn't capture the epic despair of the novel, but the film does capture the existential poetry of a parent's fear for their children. No film can capture the power of McCarthy's uniquely powerful sparse writing style. There isn't a filmic equivalent. All films based on complex novels have to focus on the main themes, and John Hillcoat's THE ROAD does this movingly.
The world has been destroyed by an undisclosed disaster. All animals and planets have died. The few humans that remain roam the land searching for food. Some have banded together and turned to cannibalism. A man (Viggo Mortensen, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE) and his wife (Charlize Theron, MONSTER) have a boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee, THE KING) in this world. The father promises to do anything to protect the child, but the woman has lost all faith in this cruel world.
The man and the boy travel from the West to the South to escape from another harsh winter. One thing the book captured that the film does not is the infrequency of human contact the man and the boy have. To keep the film moving, Hillcoat must keep run-ins on top of each other and limit the grind of the characters' search for food. This is less of a criticism but an observation. What the film does is make the boy come off more innocent in the film unlike inexperienced as he does in the book. Ultimately, McCarthy larger point remains. The harshness of the world has turned the man into a cynic and his boy is the angel that keeps him on the path of good.
With the nameless characters, the universal themes are distilled in this film brilliantly. The man and boy meet people along their journey. The man is skeptical of their motives and the boy is more forgiving. Robert Duvall makes a cameo as an old man who believed that he'd never see a child again in his life. At a fireside conversation, the man asks the old man whether he has a son, where the old man can't talk about the rift between them. The brilliant scene encapsulates the deep emotional bond between a parent and their child. Duvall's performance is so dead on and deeply felt he deserves an Oscar nomination.
And if one is on the subject of Oscars - Mortensen gives a harrowing Oscar-worthy performance. He is a man struggling to keep "the fire" alive inside, despite the unfairness of life. A late encounter with a thief (Michael K. Williams, GONE BABY GONE) is a pivotal moment that Hillcoat portrays with the same emotional resonance of the novel. The fire is alive in this moment and Mortensen is key to that.
Having read the book, I knew what was coming. Like Roger Ebert, I wasn't affected the same way by the film as I was the book. But the film did capture all the ideas the book portrayed. And even more importantly it captured the love between the father and son. That moved me like the book and that is crucial to capturing the soul of the novel. What else can one ask from a film adaptation of a classic novel?
I've discussed the film with people who hadn't read the book before seeing the film and asked them what they took and felt. And surprisingly, they felt the despair and hunger that I felt has missing. They felt the themes and father/son relationship the way the film made me feel. So I kept thinking of how the film could have captured the novel better and I can't think of anything it could do differently. Then it dawned on me. Having read the book before the film, the hallow feeling I felt was not that the film was void of something, but McCarthy's pose had numbed me and the film was just another day of the cruelty of this world. I was viewing the film like the man when those that haven't read the book where viewing it like the child.
The book and film tell the same story, but do so in different ways. Hillcoat and screenwriter Joe Penhall make a morality play. It pits cynicism against hope. As a man with a child on the way, I relate to the fears that the world is too dog eat dog for a child. Cannibalism and limited resources are perfect metaphors for this cynicism. The ash falling from the sky is a perfect metaphor for post 9/11 fears. McCarthy created dark poetry with words, Hillcoat does so with images, and the performers do so with emotions.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
