January 2010
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The Road (15)
Posted 4th January 2010

Excellent novel equals excellent movie adaptation. This is becoming something of a welcome habit for Cormac McCarthy.

About as close as it’s possible to be what I personally imagined whilst turning the pages of Cormac McCarthy’s book, John Hillcoat’s Apocalyptern (Apocalyptic-Western) The Road is set in a world turned to ash by an unexplained cataclysmic event. Through this ravaged futurescape wander a Man (Viggo Mortensen) and his Boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) with a shopping cart of scavenged food in tow in search of warmer climates.

In a constant fight for survival against starvation, disease, the corroding landscape, the harsh elements and marauding bands of cannibals, this unnamed Man and Boy live through the harshest existence one can imagine in a state of constant fear, desperately trying to hold onto not just their lives but their humanity.

As you may have guessed from the brief synopsis, The Road is not exactly what you’d describe as an “enjoyable” watch the same way you might The Book of Eli . That said it is a truly unmissable one. Moving, powerful and evocative, its 111-odd minute runtime is an endurance test for the viewer as you really feel as though you are going through the experiences alongside them. It is slightly episodic-by-nature – we see Man and Boy get into one situation, good and bad, after another and encounter other survivors, good and bad, along the way to their possible salvation with flashbacks (featuring Charlize Theron as Woman) interspersed throughout to help fill in the blanks – but then so is the source Joe Penhall (Enduring Love) has adapted it from.

The perfect meeting of talented minds, I couldn’t picture someone more suited to bringing McCarthy’s vivid words to moving image than Hillcoat and a more ideal actor than Mortensen to flesh out the nuanced role of Man. In a world covered by ash, Hillcoat and DoP Javier Aguirresarobe fill the wide frame with gorgeous-but-bleak cinematography, the world bleached of all the colour and vibrancy that there once was. A cross between the scorched panoramics of Children of Men and the empty cityscapes of 28 Days Later... the visual stylistics of the future American Outback outdoes even the past Australian Outback on-display in Hillcoat’s previous, the superlative and more straightforward Western The Proposition. Begging to be seen on the big screen, Hillcoat’s vision is both beautiful and haunting in equal measure.

Of course The Road is not 2012 and this is not some Emmerich-style effects-fest “apocalypse-porn”. Instead Hillcoat’s impressive visuals merely exist to perfectly serve the soul-searching and intimate character dramatics at the centre of this story. Wonderfully realised through understated interaction between a Derelict-looking Mortensen’s Man and Smit-McPhee’s know-no-better Boy, the crushing weight of wary responsibility and pressure yet love and devotion that the two of them feel towards each other is obvious and palpable throughout as each of them share the screen for virtually every frame of the film. Flawless acting comes as no surprise now in the case of Mortensen of course, his total immersion into his roles well-documented since Aragorn in LOTR through Tom Stall in History of Violence and Nikolai in Eastern Promises. Without knowledge, you wouldn’t necessarily be able to identify him below the layers of character he buries himself under.

No, it was the unknown quantity of the inexperienced Kodi that always represented the risk, the film’s success almost totally dependant upon his ability to act beyond his years. Turns out that was never an issue either, Smit-McPhee showing astounding acting ability for one so young and turning-in a “child performance” up there amongst the best alongside Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver, Natalie Portman in Léon, Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense and Lina Leandersson in last year’s Let The Right One In (interestingly seeing as he is currently playing the boy role in Matt Cloverfield Reeves’ US remake set for release later this year).

An outstanding adaptation that disproves the old maxim “a film is never as good as the book”, The Road must make McCarthy proud that his most personal of stories translates and impacts on celluloid as equally as the original novel on page? It just means that a wider audience (i.e. non-readers) get to experience the wonder and excellence of his impressive imagination. Don’t be surprised to see this on many award nomination lists over the next couple of months either.

*****