Movie Review: The Road (2009)

It's difficult to review a movie when you've read and loved the book. It's even more difficult when the author of said book is someone known for their densely packed, sometimes even vaguely poetic prose. As an adaptation, The Road is well done, yet falls short of the novel's ability to elicit a visceral reaction from reader/viewer. As a movie, standing on its own, The Road is a great movie where the positives far outweigh the occasional missteps.

The Road takes place in the near future. The world has been devastated by an unnamed disaster. The sky is an infinite stretch of gray, buildings have been reduced to smoldering scrap heaps, and those few people who survive are either cannibals or doing their best to avoid the roving gangs of marauders. The story itself follows The Man (Viggo Mortensen) and his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) as they attempt to travel to the southern coast of the United States, where they hope they will find the last remnants of society and be free of the constant threats of both starvation and aggressive cannibals.

Cormac McCarthy's novel, on which this movie was based, is one of the bleakest, depressing works in modern literature. Although there are glimmers of hope sprinkled throughout, the overall tone of the novel is dark, and it offers a very stark picture of a world that has fallen into utter anarchy and destruction. Although this picture itself would be tough to portray in a film, the source novel is also written almost like an epic poem, with the words and how they fit together playing an integral role in the overall experience. If that wasn't enough, the characters in the novel do not have names and the event that precipitates the story is never explained.

With these issues at play, it's quite the feat that The Road ends up being as good as it is. Joe Penhall's screenplay follows the novel's progression fairly faithfully, while doing a great job of knowing when to add poetic touches and when to abandon them so as to not bog down the movie. John Hillcoat, whose previous film The Proposition was a somewhat bleak affair, is well-suited to direct The Road, and rarely gives in to the temptation to hasten or somehow "Hollywoodify" the pacing of the movie.

The music, written by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (who have previously composed the musical scores for both The Proposition and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), is note-perfect for almost the entire movie. Unfortunately, the times when the music becomes overbearingly loud and attempts to force a feeling of tension onto the viewer is perhaps the biggest misstep in the entire film. Although only a couple of scenes have this problem, I can't figure out why it was deemed necessary to do this, as The Road is already likely to elicit tension and unease in all but the most hardened viewers.

It's amazing that I've gotten this far into this review without talking about the main reason why The Road works: The powerful acting performances from Mortensen and Smit-McPhee.

Mortensen perfectly portrays a man who has seen his wife (Charlize Theron) fall apart and holds on only so that his son may possibly see happiness and sunlight someday. Although he still tries to instill a sense of hope into both himself and his child, he makes sure his son knows how to use the gun they carry. Not so that he can attack those that threaten them, however, but rather so that he can kill himself if he finds himself in a situation where it is either die a quick death his own hand rather than a slow death in the mouths of the cannibals. Mortensen does a terrific job at portraying this desperation, not only through his speech, but through his overall demeanor and expression. Much like his performance in Eastern Promises, Mortensen fully becomes the character he is playing, and I would not be surprised at all if he receives his second Oscar nomination for his role in The Road.

Smit-McPhee, meanwhile, must both portray a child's hope and the bleak despair that comes from being born into a destroyed world. Only thirteen years old, Smit-McPhee does a great job of making his character not only believable, but on an emotional par with Mortensen's. It is a powerful and driving performance from someone so young.

Considering the story revolves almost solely around The Man and The Boy, The Road's success hinged on the performances of the two main actors. Luckily, both did a tremendous job with very difficult material, and The Road stands as a must see for those that have the fortitude to sit through such a bleak affair.

Rating: 9/10