The Road
starring Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce, Molly Parker and Charlize Theron
screenplay by Joe Penhall
directed by John Hillcoat
Rating: ♦♦♦◊◊
Based on the book by Cormac McCarthy, The Roadis a gray vision of post-apocalyptic America. Recently I also watched The Book of Eli (Denzel Washington) which features a similar theme, but there is little similarity between the two. The Denzel Washington movie has many more people, for starters. The McCarthy story has a lot more defeated despair and starvation. Both films have cannibalism. I think The Book of Eli is a much better movie, but that may be only because I am conservative enough still to be looking for stories that make sense. But I give The Road three starts just to reward the guts it took to make it (and watch it). There is minimal redemption offered at the end of each story. In The Book of Eli it is the redemption of the Word. In The Road it is the redemption of persevering family love. Or something like that, anyway.
Viggo Mortensen plays an unnamed man with his unnamed son making their way across America to the coast on foot. Which coast isn’t clear, but prejudice leans towards the west, Californiacoast, because in America - and Canada, too - people always go west to evade their problems. The plan seems to be eventually head south, I guess to avoid the nuclear winter climate change. No food here, no animals, no plants, no life.