The Road
Post-Apocalyptic movies are a wonderful thing. We’ve had the Earth
controlled by Apes (Planet of The Apes), reverting to prehistoric times
(Teenage Caveman), populated by bands of marauders (A Boy And His Dog),
humans almost hunted to extinction by machines (Terminator), and
someone even imagined a world where the postal service survives
oblivion (The Postman). A recurring theme for the new world is to have
men with Mohawks on motorcycles (Mad Max 2, 2019, After The Fall of New
York, Doomsday). The Road has nothing quite so extravagant and,
thankfully, neither does it have Will Smith pouncing around.
Sometime in the near future, the world has become a lifeless tundra
with the human race struggling to avoid extinction. The only obvious
food source is people, and survivors are forming cannibal packs to stay
alive. Viggo Mortensen and his son, Kodi Smit-McPhee are walking across
America hoping to find warmth and life. Their slow journey is
punctuated by philosophical conversation, meetings with other survivors
and encounters with the human predators. There are also flashbacks
to when father and son were living with their wife and mother, Charlize
Theron. The dire scenario of The Road is handled delicately and without
glamour. The near endless despair is punctuated with bursts of fear as
father and son are given just enough hope to keep them going.
I’m hoping that The Road, based on the award-winning novel by Cormac
McCarthy, will be successful enough to encourage other bleak stories to
be adapted to the screen. I’ve longed to see Stephen King’s novel
(written under the alias Richard Bachman), The Long Walk, made in to a
film. Its portrayal of the future is almost as depressing as The Road. fabulous sebastian www.theroad-movie.com
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