The Road – Review

Dark and unyielding, The Road isn’t for everyone. The subject of the Apocalypse, End of Days, or whatever you like to call it, has been a great and rich source material for film makers. I think it’s because man is far more interesting when we are put back into the food chain, rather than our curious state now outside of it. What will man do when his back is up against the wall? What separates The Road from other apocalyptic tales, is the lack of it being treated as a fable for the follies of humanity. There’s no great hope, there’s no chance of survival. Like I said before, with this type of nihilistic attitude, The Road will not be for everyone.

The plot is simple as this is essentially a film about a father and a son heading south, hoping that there’s some sort of place, far better than where they are leaving. If anything, The Road is about wishes and the fleeting hope of their promise. Periodically, we get some flashbacks to various times prior to the film’s current setting. Viggo Mortensen plays the father, and most of the flashbacks focus on his dreams and nightmares of the life lost. In these flashbacks, he sees his wife (played by Charlize Theron) and we get a collection of short memories of them falling in love. He is desperately holding onto these memories, but the film explores the dual nature of a decision to let them go.

It’s not hard to lose things that were once so pivotal to oneself. The film never fully explains what caused the Apocalypse, but there’s one minor hint of nuclear destruction. The film has one small fraction of anything remotely uplifting, and that comes from the son. He believes in the good, which constantly clashes with the rules of survival the father has. Food and the hunt for it, is about the only thing left to do in this setting’s lifestyle. This basic, yet boring existence has caused some to hunt as cannibals, and has brought the potentiality of suicide to the forefront. The film is about a series of questions, more than any sort of rising action in the plot. It’s conclusion is harrowing, yet it fishes for some hope to end on. I don’t know if the film succeeds on that note. The Road works best when it’s constantly stripping these characters of humanity, rather than showing or giving us a reason why humanity will survive.

Rating:

Jon Peters

I love film. That is all.

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