The Road

The Road


I'm not entirely sure where to start with my review of The Road. To call it depressing in a way I haven't seen since Requiem for a Dream might be the best bet; even that doesn't quite do it justice. If ever there was a movie that made you just want to curl up in a ball under the blankets and try to think about puppies, this would probably be it. Afterward, I wanted Prozac and a hug.

Mind you, I am a fan of Japanese guro flicks. I love a little depravity. What is so shocking about The Road isn't any sort of depravity, really. It's actually rather tame as far as violence goes. (I was expecting a LOT worse from the description of the book my boyfriend gave me.) What violence there was, it was very realistic, and it was generally over before you even knew what was happening.

A summary of the basic plot: The world has ended, and all that's left is a barren, desolate wasteland. It's also insanely cold, and all of the animals in the world are dead and gone. It's never explained why civilization as we know it collapsed, just that it did, the world is getting colder and colder, and the best bet is to "Head South." That's just what our dynamic duo of father and son is doing, following "the road" southward, toward the ocean and then further yet. Along the way they encounter other travelers and cannibals.

We never get the names of our characters either. They are The Man, The Boy, and The Man's Wife. While this is a fascinating idea in literature, it doesn't quite work as well in the movie, since it's fairly common for movie characters to never really give their names.

On the plus side of things, this movie is very, very well acted. Viggo Mortensen as The Man is convincing, he's also wonderfully fallible and human. He makes decisions and says things that make him slightly less likable than your average hero, and I appreciate that in a movie. I like my protagonists as flawed as possible. The Boy, played by Kodi Smit-McPhee, is surprisingly good. While I'm not entirely sure of his chemistry with Viggo, he delivers his lines with a lot of charged emotion behind them, when he asks The Man if they are the "good guys", he really sounds as if he means it, as if it's the most important question in the world.

The most interesting character, for me, was The Man's Wife. We only see her in flashbacks, and she's played by the stunning Charlize Theron. She wears little makeup, has ratty hair, and baggy clothes, and it makes her look like a former beauty queen who has seen better years, which the character may very well be. Her performance is haunting, and when she tells her husband that "her heart was ripped out when he (the Boy) was born", it literally gave me chills.

Is this a good popcorn movie? God no. Is it a beautiful, in a morbid sort of way? Yes. Is it worth seeing? Depends on your tastes and your ability to recover from movies that are depressing. I don't recommend watching it alone for sure, and if you thought No Country for Old Men was too bleak (it was written by the same author, Cormac McCarthy), then I don't recommend it at all.

I'm glad that I saw it as a film fan, but it's definitely not for the average moviegoer.

Entertainment value: Low. It's a bit slow in places, and it's about two people walking... no explosions and gunfights here.
Scare value: Scary isn't really the right word. It's definitely haunting, and the scene in the house with the cellar is actually pretty scary. (I won't spoil it, but it's pretty nasty.)
Realistic?: Since we don't know what caused the apocalypse, it's actually pretty realistic. Everyone is absolutely filthy, which I thought was a good bit of realism. Viggo's nails look like he just dug himself out of Buffalo Bill's well. Seriously. I wanted to give them all a bar of soap and a bucket.
Violence/Gore: Low-Medium. Other than said cellar scene... not a lot.
Sex: Other than the word "rape", mentioned once, absolutely none.
This movie is for: Fans of Cormac McCarthy, apocalypse movie fans, absolute film fanatics. Not really anyone else.
Films like it: I don't think I've ever seen anything else this desperately bleak. Not even Requiem for a Dream, and that's pretty damn bleak. It's different from most other post-apocalyptic films, and I honestly think the closest thing would be the first half of I Am Legend, possibly Omega Man.

IMDB Entry on The Road
Trailer