Oftentimes, when a successful book is transferred to the big screen, the complaint is that the essence of the source material has been lost in translation due to any number of factors, legitimate or not. It’s not unreasonable; so many novels are unwieldy, overstuffed with minor characters and illogical narratives, that it’s usually unnecessary to put the whole thing on screen. In other cases, it’s the writing itself which is the reason for a novel’s success and its cinematic cousin’s failing. The Great Gatsby is a simple story, but its timeless quality is as much for the way it‘s written as to what Fitzgerald was writing about. Nobody has ever gotten it right, and they never will. It can’t be done.
Which brings us to The Road, based on the award-winning novel by Cormac McCarthy. While reading the book, there were more than a few moments where I caught myself thinking “He’s writing a script.” Spare prose, detailed descriptions, and a story which rarely veered from the path which Father and Son (as they shall be known) were traveling on themselves; it would take a very lazy director not to make a compelling film out of it. Fortunately, in John Hillcoat, whose superb 2006 Australian Outback western The Proposition was a master class in violent minimalism, we have a director who is anything but lazy. But, is The Road compelling? Yes… for the most part.
The story, in a nutshell, deals with the unnamed Father (Viggo Mortensen) and his Son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) as they traverse, slowly and cautiously, through a ruined land in hopes of reaching the sea. An apocalypse has struck, how we do not know (please don’t consult your Mayan calendars), and the earth is rotting away. Humanity, what’s left of it, has been relegated to scavenging to survive; cannibalism is, for some, most definitely on the menu. Father, determined at all costs to protect Son, has only a revolver with a few bullets as protection against the impending savagery. Rumors of a more civilized gathering of the tribes on the coast are all that sustains them. But will they get there?
The film, for all the initial anticipation, was left to sit on the shelf for over a year. There was talk of adding ‘effects’, but if I had to guess, the real problem was that the film, in its unrelenting bleakness, proved impossible to market to a mass audience. Make no mistake: The Road is as grim as its subject matter, with an impressively rendered backdrop of death in every frame. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth seeing. The performances, not only by Mortensen, who at this late stage (he’s 52 years old!) has become one of the world’s great actors, and the equally superb Smit-McPhee, but also by the brief but excellent cameos by Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall and Michael K. Williams, are all of a very high quality. Hillcoat’s direction is very matter-of-fact, taking full advantage of the hell his design team has wrought, and blissfully willing to linger. The script, a tricky one to capture since McCarthy’s book is almost entirely written as internal dialogue, is spare and meaningful. But, at times, there seems to be something missing. There is little hint of suspense, and occasionally the withholding of information can be confusing if you’re not already familiar with the book. It’s quite possible that this was the best anyone could do.
The hardest part of all of this, of course, is how to convince you that, just as summer looks to be approaching to shake hands, spending a couple hours watching the world end is somehow worth your while. Well, you’ll just have to take my word for it. But, if you were not convinced, perhaps you’d be happier sitting back with a book to read. I’d recommend McCarthy‘s ‘Blood Meridian‘. Now there’s a story that would make a great movie.
Maybe. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]
Adventure/Drama/Thriller
Rated R
DVD Release Date: 5/25/10
[...] THE ROAD [...]
[...] THE ROAD [...]