Director John Hillcoat's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. In the burnt-out wasteland of a post-apocalyptic America, a man (Viggo Mortensen) and his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) try to survive by any means possible as they follow a desolate, corpse-strewn road towards the coast, where they hope to find some kind of a future for themselves. Travelling with only the clothes they are wearing, a small cart of scavenged food and a pistol with two bullets as protection, they struggle to survive in the ravaged landscape, encountering a few other desperate survivors along the way.
| Starring: |
Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Robert Duvall, Garret Dillahunt, Michael K. Williams, Molly Parker, Brenna Roth, Bob Jennings, David August Lindauer |
| Director: |
John Hillcoat |
| Languages: |
English |
| Distributor: |
|
MyMovies
Cormac McCarthy's breathtakingly brilliant novel about a post-apocalyptic America is brought to life on the big screen by director John ...
Cormac McCarthy's breathtakingly brilliant novel about a post-apocalyptic America is brought to life on the big screen by director John Hillcoat in an adaptation which breaks new ground on a subject that Hollywood appeared to have saturated. "The Road", winner of the Pulitzer Prize and recently named the best book of the last decade by The Times, is widely-regarded as McCarthy's finest work to date. It is a bleak, but beautiful story about an unnamed father and son (played by Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee) trying desperately to make it across a desolate American wasteland left ravaged by an unexplained global cataclysmic event. Along the way there are a few fillips, including the discovery of an underground bunker full of food. There are also moments of genuine horror, such as a basement of naked, grotesque bodies that are being kept as food for a group of cannibals. The overriding story, however, is about the journey; the highs, the lows and the everyday struggle to stay alive.The challenge for Hillcoat was always going to be the recreation of the world that McCarthy describes in such compelling prose. He need not worry - "The Road" is a triumph. Every looming cloud, every lengthening shadow, every dead weed seems perfectly placed to evoke a world devoid of hope and light. Then there are the performances: this is the role that Viggo Mortensen was born to play. His creased face and sunken eyes encapsulate a man desperate to survive even though all he sees before him is uncertainty. It is an intense and emotional portrait at the centre of this gripping drama.Kodi Smit-McPhee also earns our sympathy as a child whose innocence seems heartbreakingly at odds with this world, while Robert Duvall, Michael K. Williams and Guy Pearce give memorable cameos. Charlize Theron, who plays the wife in the flashbacks, also pulls off her role with aplomb, reminding us of the world left behind. "The Road" is one of the most beautiful visions of a nightmare ever presented on screen.
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Press Association
Abandon hope all ye who enter here. The future isn't bright, not in the slightest, in John Hillcoat's Oscar-tipped, post-apocalyptic ...
Abandon hope all ye who enter here. The future isn't bright, not in the slightest, in John Hillcoat's Oscar-tipped, post-apocalyptic thriller, adapted by Joe Penhall from the novel by Cormac McCarthy, who also wrote No Country For Old Men. Hillcoat shoots everything through a grimy, colour-bleached lens and when misery is poured upon the characters' heads, the consequences are chilling and often gruesome. To offset the relentless doom and gloom, the film clings onto any scraps of sentimentality and engineers as much of an upbeat, life-affirming resolution as it dares, which slightly cheapens the horrific ordeal of the central duo in this unspecified near future. The emotional weight of the film rests almost entirely on the shoulders of a gruff and heavily bearded Viggo Mortensen and Australian child star Kodi Smit-McPhee. Cast as father and son in a desolate landscape littered with unspoken dangers, the two actors create a believable on-screen dynamic - sometimes warm and nurturing, sometimes strained and argumentative - that holds our attention. Director Hillcoat opens with a flashback, introducing an unnamed husband (Mortensen) and wife (Charlize Theron), two survivors of a terrible disaster. She is pregnant with their son and is reluctant to bring a child into a world without hope, where humanity has turned against itself. "There has been cannibalism. Cannibalism is the great fear," the man tells us in voiceover. Having given birth to their child, the mother eventually abandons her husband, walking into the darkness to her grim fate. Years pass and supplies of fuel, food and water are almost entirely depleted, forcing those that remain onto the road. The man and his 10-year-old boy (Smit-McPhee) try to stay out of plain sight, wary of the survivors who now band together and hunt down stragglers as food. The father's only means of protection is a gun containing two bullets: one for himself and one for his boy. "Are we still the good guys?" asks the lad, as he witnesses unspeakable atrocities en route to the coast. The Road is unremittingly downbeat, bolstered by terrific performances from Mortensen and Smit-McPhee, especially in the quieter moments when they wrestle with their terrible dilemma. "You're not the one who has to worry about everything," curtly remarks the father. "Yes I am," replies the boy tearfully, aware that he could be left to fend for himself in this burned, blackened wilderness. Aside from the flashbacks, there are brief interludes with a gang member (Garret Dillahunt) and an old man (Robert Duvall), whose sorry plight drives a wedge between father and son. Hillcoat orchestrates some edge-of-seat set pieces like when the man and boy seek refuge in an old house and discover why the door to the basement is locked. It's not a road movie you'll forget in a hurry.
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