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'The Road'
Bring provisions for the trip. We're in post-apocalypse-vérité territory.
Not quite 'Road Warrior.'
-
When 'Art' Goes All Sci-Fi
Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' stinks as literature and as genre fiction.
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'Collapse'
Your chance to spend a bit of quality time with the world's foremost doomer.
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'A Serious Man'
The Coen brothers' latest drops Job into a Minnesota suburb in 1967. Nihilism ensues.
Happy Thanksgiving, Americans! Yesterday our southern friends gathered around groaning boards to gorge on turkey, stuff on stuffing, and reaffirm the importance of family. Tonight they can ritually purge by going to see The Road, a tale of starvation, desperation, and doom. But the message is the same. It's all about family.
The Road is Australian director John Hillcoat's adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel. This little fable of a devastated future makes No Country For Old Men look like a musical. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll sweep the theatre floor for stray popcorn and crushed Smarties. I was lying about the laughs.
Viggo Mortenson stars as Man, and Kodi Smit-McPhee as his son. That would be Boy. Forget about names -- no need for that sort of frippery in this sci-fi scenario. There's been an apocalypse of some unexplained type. We know only that it was natural, not nuclear, and that earthquakes are at least a byproduct of it. Virtually everything is dead or dying. Scavengers roam the countryside -- stragglers, bandits, and worse. Father and son push their way southward through a colourless landscape, headed for what appears to be the Carolinas. Flashbacks feature Charlize Theron as Woman, the third member of this nuclear family. It's clear she didn't make it this far and we wait nervously to find out why. Like so much of this movie, the eventual answer is more true than dramatic.
It was amusing to see the theatrical trailer trying to construct a standard post-apocalyptic cinematic narrative out of this film. But despite some surface similarities, The Road is not The Road Warrior. This is closer to post-apocalyptic cinema verite. There's very little plot, just a lot of struggle and dread. Father and son carry a revolver with two bullets -- one for each of them if a more horrible death looms. Ah, sweet death. As Old Man (Robert Duvall) says about quietus: "It's foolish to expect luxuries in time like these."
And, oh, those wacky mishaps
Unlike the principals, the script does give us something to chew on. The Road puts us all inside that simple scenario so many have speculated about -- how would you behave if everything fell apart? What would pass for morality when human beings are hunting each other for food? What wacky mishaps might ensue when two middle-aged men are suddenly saddled with seven-year-old twins?
Sorry, that last one is Old Dogs with John Travolta and Robin Williams, also on offer to holiday moviegoers this weekend. Apparently Old Dogs is so execrable it will make you wish you had that revolver and its two precious bullets. The Road, by contrast is not a bad film at all. A very good one, I'd say, admirably pure of vision and unsparing in execution, with fine performances from all the leads. It's just not much fun. In fact, the movie's one final note of hope may be its least convincing element -- especially after The Road has spent its 120-odd minutes convincing us that, cell phone ads notwithstanding, the future is not friendly. And next time you see a big table full of holiday grub, you should quietly begin stuffing biscuits and ham down your shirt. There's trouble coming. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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- The Gem of Canadian Science that Harper Killed
- Sexism Tinges Criticism of Teachers' Job Action
- Should You Run from that Medical Test?
13
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notamused
2 years ago
Can you say 'bleak'?
It sounds as though the movie is pretty true to the book, which I would sum up as "Yesterday I thought I was going to die. Today I wish I had." That being said, I enjoyed (ok, that's too strong a word - how about "endured"?) the book and will probably see the movie.
Chris Keam
2 years ago
great review
"I was lying about the laughs."
I'm not when I say this article made me LOL.
Rib-tickling review of a hopefully good movie from a great book.
SicPreFix
2 years ago
The Occasional Limitations of English
Good review Burgess.
How does one effectively say I enjoyed/liked/appreciated that deeply depressing, oh so sad, mood busting, bleak-as-dust, soul shattering book/movie?
:)
Jeffrey J.
2 years ago
A Good Book
I read the Road by Cormac McCarthy when it was first published, at the encouragement of my wife (I read a lot, she reads ALL the time...and we're both glad we cancelled our cable subscription). The Road was dark, disturbing and very well written. It sounds like the film parallels the book quite well.
Why are these accounts so prevalent? Could it be related to the massive unraveling of civil society? Could this portend the world to come?
Of course it could. Everyone except the elites understand that something is deeply wrong with the world.
Normal, regular people like you and me intuitively KNOW that the trajectory of society is on the wrong path. EVVERYONE. Unless you drank the cool-aide. Then you must stick together--very close--and repeat over and over again that 'everything is ok' and 'global warming is a socialist plot' and so on with the normal BS.
Biut based on what I see, day in and day out. with real people who I see and speak with, no-one else is drinking the cool-aide. They know things are bleak. And if possible, they'd like to avoid living the fate of The Road. Whether we will avoid that fate still remains to be seen.
Great coverage.
KWD
2 years ago
who to eat
When you find yourself hunting humans for food ... avoid city dwellers ,,, although tender, they're likely too toxic.
This movie is being played out ... as we speak ... with "real people".
Folks that believe the elite don't understand what's going on should purge that tho't ,,, it interferes with having a closer look at reality.
huxtan
2 years ago
'The Road' less travelled
Steve, your review rocks my socks. You managed to make me laugh yet be brief about it since I'm off to see the movie tonight -- and somehow laughing in anticipation of doom just seems a bit too court-jester.
Nice job.
Do you still have the purple shirt with buttons Devon and I gave you? (random!)
Jerry Munro
2 years ago
Something for the spit...
Sounds like this is a must see_, if a town near here with a theatre will actually set aside for once, their feel good or entertain the kids usual fare.
And I'll take note of that comment about city dwellers. 'cept country folk are gonna be too damned stringy and tough to chew on. Maybe some enterprising "entrepreneur" should get started now on a "human farm" to compete with the fish farms. We's gonna be wanting something plump and tender, that will roast up nice on a spit. (Ya gotta have a little cracklin'.)
Steve Burgess
2 years ago
huxtan?
Shea! Is that you?
Ramona777
2 years ago
At Least Eight Stars ....
And many more tears.
I saw The Road last night in a packed theatre. Great movie.
It makes you wonder how you would cope if this happened.
Our reliance on smart phones and other electronic gadgets are causing us to lose our instincts and ability to problem-solve. That doesn't bode well for such a future.
Survivors live by their wits, and as this movie demonstrates, weapons.
Scenarios like this are already being played out now. Think of people starving in Ethiopia. A ravaged environment and humans forced to do the unspeakable to survive.
You can't eat an Ipod and your BlackBerry doesn't have a blade.
axiom
2 years ago
the road
I have spoken with my family for years about the proximity of this reality. My fear is not that is coming. In Harper Magazine Wendell Berry speak about Agriculture, farming and this over educated generation that is not capable of working in a farm until they are hungry.
I gave notice already that this society will be run by mobs and mafia types (we already are; who do you think is running the governments).
Sad state of affairs.
atom
2 years ago
Huh?
Ramona777 - I really dont think Ethiopians are eating each other. That is just downright ignorant and insulting to Ethiopians. And in places like the Congo where horrible things are happening to everyday people, we might look at our own role in the bloodshed. Google the metal "Coltan"...
freebear
2 years ago
Doesn't look like the
Hydrogen highway does it!
Ramona777
2 years ago
Sorry Atom
I'm not referring to cannibalism but to the torture, looting and rape going in Ethiopia due to war and drought.
I did not mean to insult Ethiopians.
My point is that when people are desperate, unthinkable acts soon follow.