Review: The Road

The Road is a very difficult film to watch. It's a film about struggle, despair, hunger and fear. Aesthetically and tonally it's very very grey.

The effect can be exhausting, but in the best way possible. The film is about exhaustion, both physical and mental. The effect brings you closer to the story, as the characters become more and more weary, a sense of fatigue engulfs the film which draws the viewer in even further.

Based on Cormac McCarthy's critically lauded novel, The Road is remarkably faithful to the source material. Unsurprising really considering the book is actually very low on plot, instead opting to focus solely on the relationship between a man and his son struggling to survive an unnamed apocalypse.

When adapting a story like this it must be very tempting to pull the camera back and reveal more of the ravaged world and attempt to fill in the blanks. Director John Hillcoat wisely avoids this, realising that the tension comes from the unknown. McCarthy went out of his way to reveal as little as possible about what happened to humanity. It's what made the book so horrifying and it keeps the tension high in the film.

It's that uncertainty and mystery that makes all the unpleasantness that much more unpleasant. As the father and the son (and the audience) wander blindly across a devastated North America they stumble, often quite suddenly, across some very distressing scenes. Make no mistake, there is some incredibly unpleasant imagery in this film. The book was determined to display humanity at it's worst and while the film doesn't go quite as far there are still some genuinely nauseating moments presented.

As the film revolves around just two characters the performances are key. Casting the always reliable Viggo Mortenson was a genius move. Mortenson can play world weary in his sleep, but here he takes it to a completely new level. His weight loss for the role rivals Christian Bale in shock factor. His ribs and cheekbones protrude noticeably through his skin and his eyes are sunken deep into his skull. He looks positively wretched. Mortenson plays the unnamed man with a successful duality, his primary goal is obviously to keep his son alive, but a small part of him simply wants to give up. It's the boy and his relationship with him that keeps him alive.

I've seen some negative comments regarding the performance of Kodi Smit-McPhee as the man's son. I think this is unfair, he has a far bigger task than you might think. The son isn't a typical child. He is a child born into an apocalyptic world. His father even jokes that he may as well be an alien. Smit-McPhee does a fine job in a difficult role. The boy has been taught the difference between right and wrong, good and evil but he is so surrounded by darkness that he desperate to experience the light, to find and meet the other "good guys". Smit-McPhee also succeeds in portraying a child who is on the cusp of becoming a young man. When the two find a barn filled with hanging bodies the boy asks his father why they committed suicide, his father simply replies "You know why". The boy is at an age where he is beginning to understand how this world works.

The two actors have strong chemistry, which is of course what the film hinges on. The interplay between the two ranges from heart warming to heart breaking. By the end of the film you realise the film could have been about a single father struggling to pay the rent and it wouldn't have made a difference, the heart and soul of the story is the love between and man and his son. The apocalyptic back drop is just that; a backdrop.

Any criticism thrown at the film is the same thrown at any adaptation. The novel is a pretty astonishing piece of work and the film, while doing a more than admirable job, doesn't reach those heights. The strength of the book came from McCarthy's prose and the mindset of the man. Short of having endless inner monologues this just couldn't be fully replicated onto the screen. It's just the nature of adaptation.

The Road is a success. It looks beautiful and it features some dazzling performances (special mention must go to Robert Duvall who is utterly mesmerising in little more than a cameo), and beneath the murk it is uplifting. There is light at the end of the tunnel, the tunnel is just very dark.