John Hillcoat, Dimension Films (09/01/10)

Adapting revered source material is always a fraught task, but with surefooted direction, performances and production design, John Hillcoat’s The Road follows the Coen brother’s No Country For Old Men as the second consecutive successful adaptation of a grim, unsparing novel by American author Cormac McCarthy.

The largest problem with the film’s exacting translation from page to screen, aside from the loss of McCarthy’s transcendent use of language, is that the final result makes the thrilling No Country For Old Men look like a sunny trip to the amusement park. There are thriller elements to Hillcoat’s film, but the bulk of the experience is a long, slow, punishing slog through an ashen, corpse-strewn post-apocalyptic landscape toward a largely undefined goal. Sure, ‘the coast’ is mentioned and instructions are given by a suicidal character to “head South”, but it’s clear that none of the characters have a clue what lies ahead on their path, apart from almost certain death, either on their own or at the brutal hands of roving thieves and cannibals.

Like any other road trip, this one is about the journey, not the destination, and the simple, humanising need for an unnamed father and son to remain “the good guys” and keep “carrying the fire”. While it’s never stated outright, the boy has understandably come to represent an almost religious symbol of man’s survival and a brighter future, while the father’s generation has clearly failed to make a good and just world – the catastrophe that precipitated man’s reduction to scavenging survivalists is never fully outlined, but nuclear war seems to be the suggestion – so the responsibility falls to the world’s remaining young. When Mortensen finally breaks down, crying out “I have to worry about everything,” the boy lashes back at his father with the heartbreaking truth that the fate of everything rests on his own small shoulders.

None of the outstanding production design, cinematography and elegantly sparse writing would matter if it weren’t for the performances at the core of the film, performances which elevate the project from what could have been mere apocalypse porn to an unrelentingly grim but beautiful story of hope. As the reason for this hellish journey through a nightmare dreamscape, Kodi Smit-McPhee’s portrayal of the boy does indeed put a great deal of pressure on the young performer. And while Smit-McPhee acquits himself for the most part, the skill of the other actors, particularly a transformed and wholly remarkable Viggo Mortensen, threatens to expose him as outmatched by the material and fellow cast.

Indeed, Mortensen, who has made a career out of playing memorable imperfect heroes with hidden depths, outdoes himself here in a flawless performance, executed with just the right level of wearying restraint. And in spite of her small role – wisely expanded from the novel and interwoven through flashbacks with great care by Hillcoat and editor Jon Gregory – Charlize Theron gives a similarly brilliant performance as the mother, a once-radiant light that’s gone out and been replaced by a wan, hopeless shell that can’t face another day in this new world or another look from her deeply-regretted burden of a son. Theron’s real-life status as a perfume-endorsing sex symbol only serves to add weight to the crushing on-film reality of all that’s been lost.

While there may only be a few minor moments of levity in the film and the journey won’t appeal to the majority of audiences, this is an impressively realised nightmare, one made stunningly real by the skill and vision of its cast and crew. So if you’ve got the stamina or just enough curiosity to get you in the theatre, The Road offers a trip we highly recommend taking.

theroad-movie.com

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