Middle-of-the-Road
Neither horrific nor disaster-rific, Cormac McCarthy adaption takes the path of least resistance
The Road, Cormac McCarthyNs Pulitzer Prize–winning, Oprah-endorsed postapocalyptic survivalist prose poem—in which a father and his 10-year-old son traverse a despoiled landscape of unspeakable horror—was a quick, lacerating read. John HillcoatNs literal adaptation, which arrives one Thanksgiving past its original release date, is, by contrast, a long, dull slog.
Taken as a Hail Mary flung from the Weinstein Co. bunker, The Road has a certain pragmatic integrity. (While aimed at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, itNs being strategically released by the WeinsteinsN genre label Dimension.) Fidelity to the material is not the problem. On the contrary, freezing, starving and dodging cannibal marauders, the Man (earnest, increasingly Christ-like Viggo Mortensen) and the Boy (stolidly whimpering Kodi Smit-McPhee) follow the novelNs keep-on-keepinN-on trajectory (apparently to FloridaNs Gold Coast), “carrying the fire” of human decency, as well as a gun loaded with two suicide bullets.
As a director, Hillcoat is certainly credentialed to handle this unpleasant saga. The Proposition, his 2006 Australian-outback oater, was a savagely miserablist tale set in a dry-gulch hellhole of ferocious carnage. Although mildly sanitized, The Road has its grim frissons—as when the Man and the Boy escape the Redneck Slaughterhouse of Terror or discover the Last Can of Coke. But thereNs a bizarre absence of dramatic tension. One can either embrace McCarthyNs laconic tone or ignore it—Hillcoat does neither. For all the added bad-guy assaults or earthquake-induced Attack of the Falling Trees, his Road never eludes its weighty pedigree—pale by comparison to an action thriller such as Children of Men or gross-out eco-catastrophe like Land of the Dead, squandering its ready-made zombie scenario. Where McCarthy was free to focus on how a post-human world might feel, Hillcoat is compelled to illustrate these impressions and organize them into a coherent narrative.
Perhaps only a visionary genius such as Andrei Tarkovsky or a heedless schlockmeister such as Michael Bay could have handled the bookNs combination of visceral terror and mystical reflection. Ultimately, HillcoatNs The Road is less a disaster (or post-disaster) flick than a sort of global death trip—intended possibly as an audience ordeal in the tradition of The Passion of the Christ, complete with redemptive ending and regularly articulated life lessons. All meetings on the road are potential parables, every repetitive exchange between the Man and the Boy is presented as a mantra, and the appearance of a rheumy, putrid Old Man provides a gabby cameo for Robert Duvall.
The RoadNs long and winding path to the multiplex might make a more fascinating saga than the movie itself. That the 2008 version was evidently deemed too bleak for audience consumption may account for the presence of MortensenNs lugubrious, voice-over croon and the ruminative keyboard doodling used to soften every other scene. In addition to the obtrusive Nick Cave and Warren Ellis score, the BoyNs dead mother, who regularly appears in the ManNs thoughts in the tawny, distracted form of Charlize Theron, is at one point playing the piano.
Other memories of Life Before include gauzy close-ups of flowers, trees and the family horse. The latter is a nice touch, although my favorite addition to the novel is the close-up of the postapocalyptic puppy that appears in the movieNs final scene. ItNs a last-minute Christmas card reminiscent of the voice-over that opens Sam FullerNs Vietnam-set China Gate: “In this ravaged city where people are starving, all the dogs have been eaten except one.”
The Road was directed by John Hillcoat; written by Joe Penhall, based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy; and stars Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Rated R. Countywide.
