My review of The Road

The Road, a Pulitzer prize winning novel by Cormac McCarthy is one of my favourite books. When I read that it was going to be made into a film I was worried, I honestly didn’t think it could be done. Written in McCarthy’s unique style of prose, this bleak dystopian novel centres on only two characters, a father and son, whose names are not given and the events that turned the world into lifeless ash are never explained. Of course, this is because it doesn’t really matter; the story is about the relationship between the man and his boy, it’s a love story written by McCarthy for his own young son. But would this work as a film? Would they turn it into a travesty like I Am Legend? Then, like some kind of wish fulfilment miracle, it was announced that John Hillcoat would direct. Being a huge fan of The Proposition, this gave me hope. Then to top things off Viggo Mortensen was cast and Nick Cave and Warren Ellis signed on to compose the soundtrack. It was like all of my dreams had some true.

So, I waited, and I waited. I even went to New York last November as that was when its US release date had been pencilled in. But nothing happened. It wasn’t finished. Rough cuts tested poorly to audiences (clearly made of imbeciles), and it was pushed back for an entire year. In Hollywood this is never a good sign, it means someone somewhere with a lot of money and influence wasn’t happy with the film. So for the last year I have been incredibly worried about what the final film would be like, this wasn’t helped by the trailer that came out a few months ago that did indeed make it look like The Day After Tomorrow or something in that vein. I had almost completely given up hope at this point, assuming Weinstein had had his wicked way and was insisting it be re-edited into a box office money maker instead of a faithful adaptation.

Then it premiered at The Venice Film Festival to fairly positive reviews, with minor quibbles about the use of voiceover and an overly dramatic soundtrack. What particularly caught my attention though was that whether they liked the film or not the unanimous view of the critics was that it was entirely faithful to the book. It seemed that the main reason behind the delay was to ensure the film be released during Oscar season. I breathed my sign of relief and began an impatient wait until 8th January 2010 (the official UK release date), so you can only imagine my joy when it was announced as part of The London Film Festival. Luckily I managed to get tickets, and on Saturday afternoon at the Vue West End I felt like a 5 year old on Christmas morning. One with lots of presents.

Initially the most striking thing about the film is the landscape and the remarkable cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe. Filmed in real locations around North America, in Pittsburgh, Katrina ravaged New Orleans (which still exists today), Mount St. Helens and the grey beaches of the Oregon coast. The current state of the world combined with subtle and effective CGI work makes this haunting vision of the future all too believable. Much like Children of Men, the easily recognisable and relatable setting makes it extremely effective.

Everything is grey and dead after an unnamed disaster that has wiped out the vast majority of the human race. Animals and plant life are almost entirely gone, resulting in a population of starving and desperate people, many of whom have resorted to, and subsequently come to relish in cannibalism.

The man and boy are played perfectly by Viggo Mortensen and Australian newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee, a father and son who appear to be the last glimmer of humanity left in the world. They are heading south to the coast, in the hope that the ocean will be the one thing left that is not grey and dead. In one scene the man say to the boy, “You think I’m from another world, don’t you?” to which the boy agrees, and he is. He is from the old world and dwells on past memories saturated in bright colours and sunshine; he is unforgiving and assumes the worst of anyone they come across. The boy is his only reason to keep living, and he will stop at nothing to protect him, even if it means blowing the kid’s brains out. He is paralleled by the boy, who knows nothing else but their life in the present, whose innate goodness provides hope for the future. The boy begs his father to help a man who not moments before attempted to steal all of their food and belongings, never giving up on the idea that they are the “good guys” and that they must “carry the fire”.

Almost every line of dialogue comes directly off the page, and the events unfold much as they do in the book, so for those who haven’t read it I will try not to spoil the film, although I will urge you to read it. If you don’t like the book then there will be little for you in the film. Nothing really happens, not in the sense of a traditional narrative, it’s simply a sequence of events and there is little explanation or development. It is unrelentingly bleak, and there are some truly horrific and heartbreaking scenes and even though I knew what was going to happen, there were moments when I was so tense I could barely move. It’s a film that you experience and endure and can appreciate but it would be difficult to enjoy. We’re faced with our own, very likely future and it is shocking.

I’ve never had a particular problem with voiceovers, as I know some do, and I thought it was necessary in The Road to convey certain important elements of the story and worked as well as it could have done. There were also grumblings about the soundtrack, similar to what people said about The Proposition, that it was grating and pointed too heavily to the emotions being elicited from the audience. It’s true that Nick Cave and Warren Ellis do have a recognisable sound, and it certainly doesn’t flow unnoticeably with the film. But I liked the soundtrack to The Proposition a lot, and again with The Road I think it works and to me it fit the mood of the film perfectly.

My only slight problem is that there is one element that has clearly been cut from the film, given away by some of the character names listed on its IMDb page, “Baby Eater” is not present in the film. One of the most powerful images that struck me whilst reading the book was the idea that the gangs kept women like cows, impregnating them over and over to use the offspring as food. A truly gruesome thought, but important to show the limits to which people will go to keep themselves alive. Perhaps they felt it was just one step too far in the direction of out and out horror, especially as the cellar scene remains intact. Fingers crossed for deleted scenes on the DVD.

John Hillcoat said that when he met Cormac McCarthy he told him not to worry about making the film, that literature and film are two different mediums and work independently of each other. This is true in many cases, and I’m sure it took the pressure off to know he had McCarthy’s approval, but it is really hard to separate the two in this instance as they are intrinsically one and the same. If I had imagined the film in my head after reading the book, this is exactly what I would have come up with. This is why I’m having trouble approaching them as two completely separate things and why I have been drawing so many comparisons between the two. To make a dreadful analogy, the book and film of The Road are like two sides of the same coin, in contrast to I Am Legend which is in an entirely different currency to the book.

Be warned though, the poster and trailer are both misleading as 99% of the screen time comprises of the man and boy, the supporting actors appear for a minute or two at the most, despite the bold lettering on the poster and the prominent appearance of Charlize Theron in the trailer.

It’s hard for me to write an impartial review of this film, as it could easily have been specifically tailor made to my tastes entirely. It will however be divisive I feel, many finding the subject matter simply too challenging and the imagery too stark. What will be unanimous though is the opinion that Viggo Mortensen’s performance is outstanding and he undoubtedly deserves an Oscar nod. I want the film to be successful, it is clearly a labour of love for all those involved, but I can’t see it appealing to a mainstream audience. But for those who have been waiting to see it as long as I have, you can breathe a sign of relief. It will not disappoint.