The Road

A little over a year ago I picked up a copy of Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road. After I finished it very quickly, it became the best book I ever read. So I had pretty high hopes for the major motion picture adaptation.

John Hillcoat was chosen to man the directing helms of a story about a man and his son’s struggle for survival in the grayest post-apocalyptic world ever put on film. Their goal is to reach the coast, but they must track cross-country fending off cannibals, starvation, and worst of all, the threat of losing human decency.

The focus of the story is the man’s (Viggo Mortenson) struggle to keep his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) alive amongst so much death and destruction. This is such a powerful film about a father’s love, and the lengths the man will go through to protect his son. Their only weapon is a gun, which has only two bullets with the purpose of helping the two protagonists comment suicide if the “bad guys” catch up with them. The man struggles to teach his son survival, while the son struggles to find humanity in such an inhumane place.

There will be some people who will say this film is a depressor. Look deeper. This film is a rejoicer. It will teach you to rejoice in the human spirit. Because no matter how dark, how bleak things get, there is always the human spirit to rejoice in. We will always feel the need to “carry the fire.”

Check out The Proposal. A hidden Australian-western gem from John Hillcoat.