The Road

(2009) ***

In 2006, a weird thing happened. Cormac McCarthy published yet another in a long line of poetic, harsh, masculine novels, this time about a father and son fighting for survival in a barren, burned out, cannibalistic, post-apocalyptic world. And yet this time, the sales went way beyond the purveyors of literary fiction, the book became a bit of a phenomenon, and Oprah came calling. It wasn’t long before Hollywood followed, and the Weinstein brothers started planning their next Oscar acceptance speech. Viggo Mortensen got attached, a part was written in for Robert Duval, Charlize Theron even signed on. Landshark was excited!

And then the movie came out. Or did it? Seriously, I remember the previews for this one, the anticipation, and then it just NEVER SEEMED TO ARRIVE. I don’t remember any horrible reviews, Oscar or Razzies buzz, or anything. It was just like after all the buildup, they forgot to fucking release the damn thing, found it on a shelf 6 months later, and said, “Oh yeah.”

Anyway, one can of course go back in time via the interwebs and see that indeed this one was released theatrically, and to mostly positive, if underwhelmed reviews. And that perfectly describes my reaction to finally catching this one: “Meh. Pretty. Competent. Profound at times. Somewhat unaffecting.”

Now, I loved the book, The Road, and that may be part of the problem here. However, I’m not one of those who (wrongly) suggest that “books are always better than the movie.” Indeed, it’s almost surely the case that more really good movies get made from mediocre novels (see The Godfather, Jaws, and hundreds more). However, I think it’s also probably true that there are two cases when books generally lead to weaker movies, and this one had both as strikes against it. 1) Popular expectations – Let’s call it the Harry Potter effect. Directors feel like they have to please the fans of the novel, rather than create their own separate work of art. 2) Literariness – Some books are read more for the language and ideas than for the plot or characters. We’ll call this the Faulkner effect.

Just as an example, here’s a description from page one of the book: “Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world.” Now, the cinematography is fantastic in this movie (all dark and grainy and grey), and I have no doubt that they read and reread the passages of stark beauty in the novel. But ultimately, there’s just no choices to make that can capture the same sense of despair and blight that McCarthy’s minimalist prose coveys. And yet, that sense, that language, that defamiliarization (if I can get all Roman formalist on you all) is the main reason the book became such a phenomenon.

In the end, this is probably a flick worth seeing, especially if you haven’t read the book, or don’t plan to. It does capture some of the soul crushing love of the father for the son, the existential angst of what it is to want to protect your child in a world of danger and evil. But mostly that comes through in just a few moments here and there, whereas there are fairly long periods of slowness—you get the feeling that the director is trying to pass time till he can figure out how to pry into the story a new way.

Incidentally, the one true moment of horror in the film, I completely missed. I had a library copy, and just as the scene was beginning, the tension starting to build, the damn thing froze. No amount of rubbing alcohol would get that scratched portion of the disc to play, so I had to skip ahead about 3 minutes. I remember my hairs standing on end when reading that scene in the book, and it stayed with me for days, so I would have liked to have compared it. Oh well.