2009 Review #62: The Road

The Road

Rated R
(some violence, disturbing images and language)
1 hour 59 minutes

Storyline:
A post-apocalyptic tale of a man and his son trying to survive by any means possible.

Starring:
Viggo Mortensen
Kodi Smit-McPhee
Robert Duvall
Charlize Theron

Critics Grade:
B
(Consensus: The Road's commitment to Cormac McCarthy's dark vision may prove too unyielding for some, but the film benefits from hauntingly powerful performances from Viggo Mortensen and Kodi McPhee.)

My Grade:
A-

OK yes, The Road is one heck of a dark and bleak film. A holiday release may have been a bad time to put this movie out there, because it isn't all that uplifting and for the most part it's pretty grim. There isn't much color to this film, it's all pretty morose and bland looking. The performances are subdued and low key. The pacing is slow and there isn't much of any back story to these characters. To some people, it may sound like I'm describing a movie that is just OK but not all that great. Well for me, I thought The Road was one of the best movies I've seen this year, and I know that a lot of people won't agree with me on that. But that's OK, because that is why we all have separate opinions.

The Road has a very simplistic story, in fact there isn't to much of profound storyline at all. I've never read the book by Cormac McCarthy (who also wrote the novel in which No Country for Old Men was based), so I don't know how much of the book story transferred over to the film. I know the book is just as dark as the film however, that much I've heard by word of mouth. But here we have a post-apocalyptic world and there aren't many human's left (as far as we are shown at least). We follow the story of a father, played by Oscar nominee Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises, Lord of the Rings trilogy) who is constantly on the move with his young boy played by Kodi Smit-McPhee. They have no home, the world has been taken over by destruction. It is constantly dark and cold and rains a lot. They are just trying to survive the weather, hunger and the crazies (the bad guys as they call them in the film).

Not much really happens in this movie, I'll be completely honest about that. There isn't much excitement and virtually no "action" type movies. This isn't a "2012" type end of the world movie. In fact, it's the polar opposite. While some people may find that to be a bit dreary and even boring, I found it to be quite engaging and somewhat captivating. We don't have a large cast to focus on here, it's mainly this father and son. I was never bored. I was hooked from scene one and it never let me go. There was something about this father son relationship that was so moving and I thought it really elevated this film to a beautiful level. Sure we don't know a ton about them before this apocalypse, but to me it didn't really matter. You get to know their characters well enough throughout the film's pacing and I couldn't help but feel for both of them. I thought the writing here was excellent, it may even entice me to read the book eventually. But I didn't need much background for me to enjoy these peoples tale of survival.

Again, this is a post-apocalypse film. However, I will tell you right now that you pretty much never learn what the heck happened to the world. It's never told to us, and maybe it is in the book I don't know. Something awful clearly happened, but there didn't appear to be any toppled over buildings and stuff like that. It was implied that there may have been some severe earthquakes, but again it's never officially told to us. Again, that might bother some people. To me though, it didn't really effect my view of the movie. Why should it matter what happened? That's not what THIS story is about. Sure in movies like 2012, we need to see the 'what', but here we just care about the after effects. This apocalypse was just the even that set the story in motion. They did a good job though at creating this after world. I'm sure most of it was done with some computerized effects, and they looked damn convincing if you ask me. Set designs were totally foreboding and grim and they accented the film beautifully. This world had to look convincing, it had to look dark for us to believe these characters journey. So however they pulled off the look of the film, whatever they did, it was brilliant!
The movie also has two very strong performances. Viggo Mortensen has typically been one of those under appreciated actors. He's always doing great work and rarely getting recognized for it. Now I'm not saying he should get an Oscar nomination for this performance, but I am saying he did a really fantastic job with this part. I mean I believed the love this guy had for his son. I believed his protectiveness and his heart ache. Mortensen proves in this film how truly great he is at playing that every man we can all relate to in some way. His performance here is so quiet and toned down, but it was just so amazing at the same time. He deserves Oscar attention for this performance, but I don't think he will get it. Backing him up brilliantly and shockingly was young Kodi Smit-McPhee who plays his son. You don't get a lot of Oscar worthy performances from kids his age, but this kid tugged at my heart strings with his acting in this film. I mean this was a real kid. He did so well at playing this kid as scared for his life, scared for his fathers life. He bonded so beautifully with Viggo, there were times where you swear they really were father and son. McPhee does a superb job at delivering real emotion and authentic fear that you can't help but get choked up at certain moments of his performance. Because you really being to fear for his safety. Solid performances!

So my overall consensus on The Road is that it is one hell of good movie. You have to go in knowing you are about to see a low tone, grim film though or else you might be off put by it all. This is a slow film, there is no big explosions. No gun fights. Barely any blood. This is a story based film that takes place AFTER a earth shattering destruction of some sort. This is a film about a journey of a father and son who are trying to stay sane together, and who are trying to survive together. Every aspect of this movie was done so brilliantly in my mind. This is a move that had me reeled in from the very beginning. I loved this film, and maybe everyone won't feel the same way I did, but I still highly recommend you see it! Definitely one of the best 2009 has had to offer so far!