The Road is a movie about what happens after the world ends. Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee play an unnamed father and son roaming a desolate America. Something wiped out humanity as we know it, and now the pair live in fear, scrounging whatever food they can find, and hiding from people who have turned into cannibals. In a way, its a clever way of illustrating real zombies, yet these people don't lumber around, they prowl.
The movie is based on a Cormac McCarthy novel, read by me, and a novel that stands above the movie. I have read McCarthy's other adapted work, No Country For Old Men and I can say the movie stands above the book. This movie is directed by John Hillcoat, who directed The Proposition (2005) a while back. He is a good director, but he is not a great one.
The movie inhabits a metallic palette, and beautifully conveys the look of this post-apocalypse America. Mt. St. Helen's is beautifully utilized, as the pair stumble across a lake full of trees (Spirit Lake) and dead, barren trees (any tree with a close radius of the mountain). Hillcoat does a good job of using actual locations, and color grading the look, rather then going into a studio and creating the backgrounds with green screen.
Charlize Theron is featured as the Man's wife, in flashbacks of vibrant color, reminding us of a life lived long ago. She leaves, leaving the man and son to fend for themselves, but whenever the man falls into a slumber he dreams of times with her. Robert Duvall and Guy Pearce make key appearances in the film, and Garret Dillahunt makes a fantastically effective villain.
And the performance by Mortensen is a strong, courageous one. Mortensen always seem to inject humanity into any character he plays, whether it be the doubtful King of Middle Earth, a small town killer, or Russian mobster. He is a fine actor. Smit-McPhee, who plays his son, is good for what is asked of him, but isn't astounding. He wears his emotions rather then embodies them, but by the end you can help but sympathize with his predicament.
However, despite all these good aspects, there is are major shortcomings: it isn't grim enough. The movie is really pretty good, but through its pacing, its editing, and its overall style, it doesn't quite get depressing enough. It moves quickly, and in a scene where the Man and Boy encounter a particularly grim cellar, there is no sense of shock, instead only of disgust. The movie doesn't resonate.
And the movie changes the novel's original end slightly, tacking on an extra bit of information that doesn't make any sense and is supposed to leave the audience with more hope then the book. Maybe this is the overall problem, the ending, but I remember feeling throughout the movie, "There needs to be more woe, more sorrow." Maybe Mortensen and his kid are too emotional and not somber enough, which is how I pictured the man's character anyway.
This movie is proof that an almost entirely faithful adaptation isn't the same thing as...adaptation. Adaptation is the process of change, but here the book is the shooting script. The source material must be respected, but does not have to be literally translated. You can never compare two different sources together, but you can contrast what makes them different. McCarthy's stark passages are very visual, but keep a third person perspective in the novel. In the movie, the man narrates, and I feel that was one of the unwise changes, though it works.
I encourage any moviegoer to seek this out over 2012 (2009) however. That movies looks like pure idiocy, spectacle, and no thought whatsoever. At least The Road has a vision, but it is the shadow of a movie that could have been great.
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