Published on: 2nd September, 2009
Release Date: October 16, 2009
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael Kenneth Williams, Guy Pearce, Robert Duvall
Director: John Hillcoat
Studio: Dimension Films
Genre: Drama
The movie adapted from McCarthy’s book beckoned as a masterwork of rare, overwhelming straightforwardness, is a wonderful story with the potential to become a magnum opus. Idyllically, the audience would be able to cogently and effectively gaze through the apparent, external viciousness of the story to perceive the quivering core of belief, adoration and frantic humankind that it masks.
Hillcoat definitely seems the ideal pick to direct ‘The Road’ on the basis of the potency of his past unforgiving movie ‘The Proposition’. John Hillcoat’s entrancing and shattering adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy’s book par excellence ‘The Road’, delves into the intensely profound bond between a father and son that has such genuineness and lucidity that it manages to keep the duo breathing in a bleak situation wherein death could be the only wish left. The movie depicts the heroic struggle among the dual, potent emotions of love and despondency, taking the appearance of an adventure narrative placed in a dramatic, appalling post- apocalyptic America.
Hillcoat along with his adept team have visibly put in scrupulous endeavours to vividly showcase the austerity and barrenness of McCarthy’s cosmos on to big screen. Powerful performances from Mortensen ( the Man) and Smit-McPhee ( the Boy) whose performing prowess perfectly exemplifies the intense, rudimentary father-son relationship and their fortitude to endure all odds in spite of any apparent reason in doing so.
One is utterly blown away with the spine-chilling acting skills of Viggo Mortensen with his eyes amply adequate to portray the desperation experienced and his son, the 12-year old Smit McPhee, purportedly a phenom, credibly depicts the Boy’s continuous personal clash between mortal trepidation and fundamental righteousness. Charlize Theron dons the role of the Man’s better half, and has a miniscule role in the movie, opting to end her life long before Mortensen and his son get to their present bleak state.
The movie has several heart-thumping, tense moments like the spectacular getaway from a pack of cannibals with triumph equating to being able to fool death for yet another day, and uncovering anything edible to forage on. The duo protagonists’ most redoubtable foes are not the cannibals, but hunger, inhospitable climate and the persistent need to put a stop to the dreary struggle. A gut-wrenching experience to see the duo meander amidst wilderness, struggling to endure on the fast depleting remains of a world one has not witnessed and the other who hardly recollects any.
The two-hour, soul-stirring movie aptly compresses the novel that has a lingering sense of questioning the motive behind awakening at dawn only to plod amid the ash and the downpour.
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