Directed by John Hillcoat
(R)
**
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An adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic tale
This unrelentingly bleak adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel is a “road you’ll wish hadn’t been taken,” said Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee play a father and son who survive an unexplained apocalypse that leaves the world cold and ravaged. The aftermath, as envisioned by director John Hillcoat and screenwriter Joe Penhall, “completely chills the soul.” Watching the two carry on in a desolate landscape is a “shattering experience,” said Dana Stevens in Slate.com. In this, Hillcoat is merely being true to the “extreme nature” of McCarthy’s doleful original, but it means that the film is often barely watchable. There are “limits to what the human mind and heart can endure,” and The Road surpasses them. The only glimmer of hope in this tale is the “father’s fierce devotion to his child,” said Mary Pols in Time. Their unbreakable bond is the “driving force” of both the book and the film. Though The Road creates a “seamless vision of misery,” it also paints a profound portrait of parental love and duty.
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