The movie really does the book justice
Added 3/11/2010
I almost fully agree when people say, "The book is always better than the movie." but with 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthey, the movie really does it justice. I felt for once, the movie is just as good as the book and delivers the same grim feeling throughout the story along with the instensity of every moment. The acting was phenomonal and the movie's plot was laid out almost exactly like the book. I would give both the book and the movie, 5 stars
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Powerful and gripping
Added 2/27/2010
I was astounded at the raw and gritty portrayal of humanity driven to desperation in "The Road." Cormac McCarthy's novel was beautifully written, and this movie adaptation does it justice (in my opinion). The strength of the movie lies in the visceral performance by Viggo Mortensen, the depiction of the loving relationship between a father and his son, and the realistic sets and compelling visuals of the barren landscape - a world where there are no visible animals, where trees have long since shed their leaves, where the ocean itself has long since ceased to be blue, and where humanity is hardly evidenced. There are not many humans in this movie - the main characters, a man and his young son (played by Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee) are on a journey, more of a quest really, to reach the coast, where they hope there will be some hope for survival. The wife and mother (Charlize Theron) is seen via flashbacks,and the viewer gradually learns her fate. Almost all of the other 'humans' in this movie, are barely people anymore, just rampaging creatures driven by a need to satiate their hunger...creatures who devour their own kind. Yes, there are many graphic visuals of cannibalism here...as Viggo Mortensen's character says at the beginning of the movie, "Cannibalism is the great fear."
Will humanity really be driven to this when the end comes? What semblance of one's self will remain? Neither the book nor the movie tell us what caused this devastation on Earth, yet that is besides the point. The story addresses the basic motivations that drive people - when there is nothing left, what does one do - maintain decency, hope, and love, or prey upon others? The father's eternal love for his son, and the son's instinctual desire for mercy and compassion are compellingly portrayed. It is this that kept me hopeful as the credits rolled.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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I am going to start out by saying, I liked this movie. The acting was very good. Of course it is a very sad and depressing story. Could it ever really come to this? I think I'm gonna start stock piling canned goods too.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Read the Book
Added 2/20/2010
Having found Cormac McCarthy's novel to be poetic, disturbing, gripping and thought-provoking, I highly anticipated this film - especially given the talent involved. At a basic level the film is sevicably faithful to the book. The visuals of the postapocalyptic world are striking and convincing. The acting is good, and Viggo Mortenson fully embodies the character of the man.
There are two things that primarily work against the film. First, the ecocative power of McCarthy's prose is simply untranslatable to film. The story alone is not particularly compelling. Second, the film indulges in too much sentimentality. This occurs through the repetitive flashbacks to the man's wife, through some of the encounters and exchanges with strangers, and finally in the somewhat overwrought ending.
In the end, I was left unmoved by the experience, and felt no emotional connection to film. While the novel is destined to be a long remembered classic, this film seems destined to fall into the dustbins of memory long before the apocalypse ever arrives.
4 out of 7 people found this helpful.
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Remarkable adaptation
Added 2/18/2010
Most adapted screenplays are a shortened version of the original work, the successful screenwriter having found the shorter story that is the cinematic story; or they are a restatement of the original work that shifts the perspective. "The Road" was a short enough book to allow a direct, nearly page-for-page adaptation without yielding a four-hour film. A direct adaptation is what screenwriter Joe Penhall and director John Hillcoat accomplished. This transition from page to screen without any retreat from Cormac McCarthy's presentation of sheer and utter survival is remarkable. It's also curious, in that the screen story is a bit more hopeful, or at least slightly less grim, than the book.
As I read "The Road" I had to push myself emotionally to finish the book - I found the story and McCarthy's writing to be that compelling, and therefore emotionally enervating. I wondered very seriously if I could watch the movie. At a friend's urging I did go, and I'm glad I did.
The story, in short, is a man and his son making their way south by foot, following roads indicated on a tattered road map. The two have already begun their trek as the story begins, after surviving a decade living in this post-apocalyptic world. As in the book, the viewer is made to wonder how long he or she would spend every waking minute just surviving and nothing else, and by just surviving I mean finding a way to continue the metabolism of your body, and nothing more. No joy, no civilization. Would that endless struggle be worth willing oneself to use each conscious moment to do nothing but get to the next?
Vigo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee make an unforgettable team as a father devoted in complete selflessness to his son, and as a boy who, at the age of ten or so - having had no developmental childhood, having barely even seen another child in his life - lives at many ages. As expressed a little more explicitly in the book, the boy is virtually the only reason the man continues. That, and the tiny joys and happiness that, in fact, do emerge, if only in cruel sparseness. Those, and the civilization one can keep within oneself, or between two. The fire.
I am not a religious person at all, but neither have I ever thought life to be simply an equation. And so by the final scene I did hold the man, the boy and the rescuing family at a higher level than the man's wife, and the various unknown suicides displayed along the journey. Even under the best of circumstances, everything across history and pre-history has always depended on those who go on anyway, regardless, even when how to go on is unknown, maybe unknowable. Within immeasurable misery, perhaps moving ahead of Death until circumstances beyond your body and mind and will say otherwise is better - has meaning - than inviting Death to overtake you. This effort allows the whole to be greater than the sum. Maybe within the gap between the mere sum and the greater whole is the point of it all.
2 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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The movie really does the book justice
Added 3/11/2010
I almost fully agree when people say, "The book is always better than the movie." but with 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthey, the movie really does it justice. I felt for once, the movie is just as good as the book and delivers the same grim feeling throughout the story along with the instensity of every moment. The acting was phenomonal and the movie's plot was laid out almost exactly like the book. I would give both the book and the movie, 5 stars
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
Powerful and gripping
Added 2/27/2010
I was astounded at the raw and gritty portrayal of humanity driven to desperation in "The Road." Cormac McCarthy's novel was beautifully written, and this movie adaptation does it justice (in my opinion). The strength of the movie lies in the visceral performance by Viggo Mortensen, the depiction of the loving relationship between a father and his son, and the realistic sets and compelling visuals of the barren landscape - a world where there are no visible animals, where trees have long since shed their leaves, where the ocean itself has long since ceased to be blue, and where humanity is hardly evidenced. There are not many humans in this movie - the main characters, a man and his young son (played by Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee) are on a journey, more of a quest really, to reach the coast, where they hope there will be some hope for survival. The wife and mother (Charlize Theron) is seen via flashbacks,and the viewer gradually learns her fate. Almost all of the other 'humans' in this movie, are barely people anymore, just rampaging creatures driven by a need to satiate their hunger...creatures who devour their own kind. Yes, there are many graphic visuals of cannibalism here...as Viggo Mortensen's character says at the beginning of the movie, "Cannibalism is the great fear."
Will humanity really be driven to this when the end comes? What semblance of one's self will remain? Neither the book nor the movie tell us what caused this devastation on Earth, yet that is besides the point. The story addresses the basic motivations that drive people - when there is nothing left, what does one do - maintain decency, hope, and love, or prey upon others? The father's eternal love for his son, and the son's instinctual desire for mercy and compassion are compellingly portrayed. It is this that kept me hopeful as the credits rolled.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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I am going to start out by saying, I liked this movie. The acting was very good. Of course it is a very sad and depressing story. Could it ever really come to this? I think I'm gonna start stock piling canned goods too.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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