Jared Mercer Online

The Road is a film that may polarize audiences the world over.  To some it may appear that this is another bleak Cormac McCarthy adaptation, where evil triumphs good and everything ends as it begins in utter misery and to top it off not much happens throughout the course of the movie besides walking along roads.  Well that would be missing the point by a long shot my friends.  John Hillcoat’s ever so accurate depiction of The Road actually has many layers to it other than the stunning visuals of our decaying world.

First of all, this is no boring film even if some people tell you that there is too much walking and not enough action, but this is not an action film!  The Road is also definitely not akin to Gus van Sant’s 2002 film Gerry where Matt Damon and Casey Affleck literally just walk together through the desert, usually in silence, for about the entire duration of the long movie.  There are a few action scenes in the film and many tense moments as Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee, who play the Man and the Boy respectively, actively evade other humans who are very likely cannibals or just out to rob them, and with the suspense meter up so high I don’t think I felt my chest get so tight in a cinema for quite some time.  There is enough action in the movie to please the ADHD kids but there is also a strong intellectual side for the thinkers out there.  John Hillcoat, who you probably know from his 2005 Australian western flick The Proposition (but he can also take directing credits for To Have and to Hold and Ghosts…of the Civil Dead, roughly directing a film every 8 years or so until now) captures such McCarthian nuances (*not the commie hating McCarthy) well enough that you don’t have to look far to find them, but they are layered enough that if you don’t pay attention you will miss them. I for one actually did not read the book before watching this film because when I found out they were going to make a movie out of it, I decided to see the film as Viggo Mortensen is one of my favourite actors, I decided I would just rather be surprised in the theatre rather than know what’s coming. The release date kept getting pushed back from its original November 2008 date, first to October 16th, 2009 then to November 25th, 2009 a whole year later! So I maybe should have read the book so I could have alleviated some of the anticipation.  In hindsight, I’m glad I didn’t because the theatrical experience was amazing.

The idea of transferring this story from paper to celluloid has been going since 2006 when producer Nick Wechsler (Sex, Lies, and Videotape; The Fountain) gained the rights to turn the book into a film.  It had been widely regarded for some time that this McCarthy classic was impossible to make a movie out of, but after seeing the end results I am not sure how this impossibility ever crossed anyone’s mind.  Wechsler approached John Hillcoat about directing the film after watching The Proposal and in 2007 Joe Penhall was hired to create a script for the adapted screenplay.  Things got rolling nicely as the producers, which included Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz, had Viggo Mortensen attached to the project before pursuing a distributor for their film. Beginning in February 2008 and with a budget of $20 million, the crew set to shooting in Pennsylvania (most of the film was shot at The Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike) then in Louisiana and Oregon.  The role of the boy went to child actor Kodi Smit-McPhee after his father sent in a tape of Kodi acting out the scene where the Man teaches the Boy how to kill himself by putting the gun in his mouth.  Hillcoat wanted to avoid using too much CG, so the crew took advantage of all days with bad weather to help portray their post apocalyptic world.  There were still computer graphics specialists in post production however, they were mainly used to make the sky more grey and remove andy greenery from the scenes.

The basic plot of the movie is the day-to-day survival of a father and son in a world decimated by something unexplained.  The fact that the end of the world has happened but it is not explained how-so I think is terrific, not because it follows the books but because it is irrelevant at this stage.  There are flashbacks to before the end of the world where Viggo Mortensen dreams of his past wife played by Charlize Theron, but even those scenes do not give away what has caused the world to undergo such destruction.  The key points of the film are all regarding the relationship between the father and son however.  The Man always tries to do right and will protect his son at all costs, but when the world starts to bring him down he wavers slightly in his path of righteousness, or as his son would ask: “We’re still the good guys right?”  When having a conversation with an old man played by Robert Duval, the Man refers to his son as his god, not in the literal sense but meaning that the Boy is everything to him.  This idea of the Boy being a God or all that is good in the world actually plays out that way as well.  When they get robbed, the Man’s reaction is to find the man who robbed them and take back all of their belongings and his as well so that the thief will be left to die naked.  The Boy seems to have this understanding of good in people and that the thief is only a thief out of necessity and anyone would do the same.  He convinces the Man to return the thief’s clothes to him as well as give up a can of food, and when the thief is no longer where they left him, the Boy leaves the goods in a little stack on the road just in case he comes back.  This is just an example of how this little boy is unintentionally the only rational and people loving human left in this world of roving gangs and cannibals.  Thus to the Man and any others who come into contact with him, his is God-like.

The film ends with a great note of sadness but then a small glimmer of hope as well, which is all we could ask from a Cormac McCarthy tale.  No Country for Old Men, McCarthy’s most popular adaptation done by the Coen Brothers did not spare us such a glimmer in its final scenes so viewers should not bitch about this film starting sad, continuing to be sad, and ending sad.  There is much more to it, especially in the themes I mentioned whereas the boy is a God and his relationship with his father, and that perhaps things may work out for him in the end.  Obviously the story cannot have a happily ever after ending, it is rather left to the viewer/reader to decide what happens after the credits roll/they close the book’s cover.  I am not much for rating but out of 5 stars I could give The Road 4, as it is not the greatest film I have ever seen but it is definitely very very good, and the best of our short year so far (as it did not come out in theatres in the UK until January 2010 after it’s world premiere in September at the Venice International Film Festival).

That is my break down of the film, but if you would like to read more on this go over to the Rigor Mortis Zine section as I have created a post containing interview conducted by Little White Lies Magazine with director John Hillcoat and lead actor Viggo Mortensen.  LWL does nothing but good stuff really. To show “big-ups” to them, read on below on how they are helping to promote saving one of London’s oldest and most historic cinemas:

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Late last year we posted a plea for people to show their support for the McGuffin film society, who are campaigning to save the EMD cinema in Walthamstow, London, which first screened films as early 1896 and was a regular haunt for Alfred Hitchcock, who watched films there as a boy. So while many of us may have been sat in front of a warm fireplace or wrapped up in a big, comfy jumper over the Christmas period, a number of individuals braved the elements to stage another campaign in front of the historic building.

As well as this, numerous interested cinema operators have joined the debate and had their say on the situation, in response to the church who earlier last year explained that they, “accept that a lot of people want a cinema in Walthamstow, but make no mistake, a cinema is not a viable option for the former EMD.”

Tyrone Walker owner and manager of the Genesis cinema in Mile End however, feels differently stating “It would be entirely possible to bring the cinema back to life. We regenerated and opened the Genesis cinema in Whitechapel after it had been closed and left derelict for 10 years. We are now celebrating our 10th birthday proving that a successful business can rise from the ashes of an old one. I see the Walthamstow Cinema as a similar project and there is no apparent reason why it couldn’t work.”

While Nick Curran, manager of local bar Celsius, just one of the local businesses concerned has questioned “How a church going to provide anything that the council has promised in the way of regeneration?”

In the wake of the latest protest Bill Hodgson, who organises the McGuffin Film Society said: “It is good to see that some politicians are now listening to local people and getting behind the campaign to save this unique cultural asset…We want the council to assess UCKG’s planning application as a matter of priority and not put it on the back burner as we enter an election year.”

It is anticipated that the fate of the cinema will be determined at a meeting of the council’s Planning Committee sometime in the next few weeks. At LWLies we whole heartedly hope that this great cinema will be restored to its former glory, so the borough of Waltham Forest may enjoy all the cinematic treats on show this year and beyond.

If you would like to show your support for one of London’s finest and most historic venues visit www.mcguffin.info and join the fight to save this landmark cinema.