For Reel

Director: John Hillcoat

It’s 2009, and the apocalypse is in. “Zombieland”, “2012″: audiences love nothing more than mass-destruction, the kind that leaves nothing but devastated landscapes and a few stragglers who’ve somehow managed to persevere. “The Road”, however, is not about the cause of our demise, rather how we’d respond in an environment of dirt-stained skin, torn shoes, and an everlasting stomach growl. Needless to say, Cormac McCarthy doesn’t think the majority of us would fare too well.

McCarthy, of course, wrote the book (he also wrote “No Country for Old Men” and Todd Field’s upcoming “Blood Meridian”), and the film adaptation is directed by John Hillcoat, who in 2005 brought us a contemporary western in “The Proposition”. I was fortunate enough to go into the movie cold to the material (or, not so fortunate, as McCarthy is as beloved of an author as we have today), and unlike some failed literary adaptions you don’t feel as though you’re cheated out of the meat of the story.

The unnamed father and son, played remarkably by Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee, are traveling to the coast before the winter comes. Amongst their obstacles are starvation, and perhaps even more frighteningly so, the gangs of cannibals who roam the streets. The father, early on, reminds his son of the proper way to shoot himself should he be captured – only that release could save him from being raped, murdered, and consumed.

What makes “The Road” work so well is the production itself – it’s unrelenting grayness, coating the world in a never-ending dust. It’s one of the more impressive, and certainly more bleak, post-apocalyptic landscapes – a world so frightening, in fact, that exiting to the theater lobby will feel like a minor victory in itself.

There are a few things that don’t work too well, such as an overbearing score or unneeded flashback sequences, but the strength of the performances and the setting’s design make “The Road” worth remembering. Once again, Mortensen has proven himself to be one of the best, and certainly most underrated, actors in Hollywood – he’s a chameleon of a performer, servicing himself completely to any environment and inhabiting vastly different personalities with each outing.