Over the years, there have been countless films set in a post-apocalyptic world. I know I have seen my share. There are good ones and bad ones, and ones that are there for no particular reason other than someone thought they would be good. Most of them have some sort of gimmick or higher concept that pushes them forward. I Am Legend has the zombie things, The Postman has the mailman, Mad Max has its cars, and Cyborg has, well, a cyborg. It seems that all of them have something that pushes them away from reality. They all strive for realism, but that is very different than being real. I believe this is because studios want these films to be entertaining. Being real in a post-apocalyptic setting is a disturbing concept that runs the risk of sucking the escape out of the experience and that is not good business for the suits with the funds.
Enter director John Hillcoat (The Proposition) and screenwriter Joe Penhall (Enduring Love). This duo set their eyes on Cormac McCarthy's novel, The Road. McCarthy also wrote the novel that became the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men. I have not read any of his books, but they seem to be complex works that cannot be easy to adapt to the big screen, although given the right creative team can be terribly effective.
The Road is the story of an unnamed father and son traveling along the road in a post-apocalyptic landscape attempting to survive by any means necessary. It is a film of uncompromising vision. It goes for the jugular and does not let go. This is not to say it is a thrill-a-minute roller coaster ride, but it is one that engages the viewer on an emotional level from the start. It is a slow burn from start to finish with moments of genuine emotion, fear, love, anger, sympathy — the whole range of human feeling is contained within.
The film takes place in the near future after some unspecified disaster (war? meteor? global warming?) leaves the nation (world?) a wasteland. It does not matter what happened, all we need to know is that something did. It takes the wildlife, plants, animals, everything. Gone. Food is scarce and the people that are left wander, scavenging for food, or join roving gangs, or take to cannibalism, or some combination of the above. Father and son are two of the good guys; they struggle to retain what it is that makes them human, carrying the fire that keeps that human part of themselves alive.
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