The Road

Director John Hillcoat and actor Viggo Mortensen have both made their names with dark, gritty films: Hillcoat with Nick Cave-scripted Western “The Proposition,” Mortensen with a pair of David Cronenberg thrillers, “A History of Violence” and “Eastern Promises.” It is tempting, then, to suggest that with “The Road,” a bleak, post-apocalyptic travelogue, both men are sticking to what they know.

Such a generalization, however, would be misleading. Though “The Road”—adapted from the Pulitzer-Prize winning novel by Cormac McCarthy—fits comfortably into a dark and atmospheric genre of post-disaster film that has recently included such uninspired schlock as “I Am Legend,” it is also quite unlike the films that have preceded it, including Mortensen and Hillcoat’s previous efforts. Eschewing narrative conventions, at least to the extent that big-budget Oscar bait can afford to do so, “The Road” maintains enough of the book’s central story to keep its audience enthralled while splitting its real attentions equally between creating a stunning visual spectacle and meditating on the book’s broader themes of love, redemption, and the human capacity for self-destruction.

“The Road” is the story of a nameless father (Mortensen) and son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) traveling across the devastated remains of an American continent that has experienced a disaster—of unknown origin—that wiped out the vast majority of the population. Endlessly searching for food and hunted by bands of cannibals, the two make their way toward the coast, where the father believes they may find safety and other “good” people.

Visually, Hillcoat and cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe play an established post-apocalyptic trick and drain the color from the once-lush forests and mountains that play host to the first half of the story. Only two things interrupt the film’s monochromatic palette: blood and fire, both of which are shot in horribly sharp relief. But Hillcoat and Aguirresarobe refuse to let their limited color range get in the way of shooting a strikingly desolate film, filled with a series of images that seem destined to become iconic. Father and son stumble down a warped concrete road, shattered telephone poles leaning ominously over them; Mortensen pushes a shopping cart through a marsh, silhouetted by guttering flames. On this “Road,” destruction and barrenness take on a peculiar sublimity.

Though the film’s bleak beauty may distract momentarily, it doesn’t take long to realize that it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. But Hillcoat has created a road narrative without the ever-present forward motion that usually defines it. Instead, “The Road” is composed of fleeting moments, vignettes that slowly coalesce into a fuller picture of the characters and their experiences. Father and son run from bandits, enjoy an unopened, still-carbonated Coca-Cola, and eat canned fruit with an elderly fellow traveler, all the while theoretically moving toward the coast. The structure of the film doesn’t so much negate that motion as render it irrelevant.

The fragmentation of the film is furthered by its one major deviation from McCarthy’s book: the inclusion of a number of flashbacks. Featuring Charlize Theron as Mortensen’s wife—a character who appeared only referentially in the book—these scenes show the gradual unraveling of their family as the mysterious crisis unfolds outside shuttered windows.

The purpose of this addition is ambiguous, but any intended benefit is undermined by a horribly overplayed performance from Theron. Her tearfully dramatic interpretation of domestic strife, which might work well in another context, falls flat when juxtaposed with the quieter but far more affecting despair that permeates the rest of the film. Mortensen nearly resorts to similar overacting in the flashbacks, but he redeems himself in the main narrative with a perfect balance of subdued hopelessness and occasional sparks of faith. Rarely raising his voice above a low mumble, the father is still as vibrant a character as Mortensen has ever played. Smit-McPhee also impresses, with wide-eyed innocence tempered by ever-present sadness.

Several of the film’s vignettes stand out. Anyone who has seen Michael Haneke’s 2005 French-language drama “Hidden” recalls a certain scene: after 45 minutes of seemingly plotless meandering, a single moment of suicidal violence shocks the audience out of their fugue and puts them on the edge of their seats for the remainder of the film. “The Road” employs a similar effect; following a span of wandering, father and son come upon a disconcertingly civilized-looking house, which they are drawn to investigate. Readers of the book know exactly what's coming, which only makes it worse. Another memorable scene features Michael K. Williams, best known as Omar from “The Wire.” With all of five minutes of screen time, Williams blows the rest of the cast away as a pathetic thief who makes off with father and son’s belongings and pays a devastating price.

Those two scenes sparkle on their own, but together the vignettes create an effective conduit for the film’s major themes. Though the cause of civilization’s end remains unknown, there is some implication that it is manmade. Be it nuclear or environmental, “The Road” forces us to contemplate our end, brought about by our own hands. And it demands, ever so subtly, that we reassess our priorities and protect our planet from ourselves.

The fractured vision of “The Road” succeeds in that the audience’s attention is directed away from the road narrative and towards the big ideas that constitute the film’s core. But viewers who haven’t read the source material may be left somewhat bewildered by the vaguely serialized, disjointed final product. McCarthy’s book, as spare and angular as it was, remained a cohesive, plot-driven whole. Hillcoat’s film seeks to distill the novel’s essence, and in the process loses some of the details that would keep an uninitiated audience engaged. (Given how well the film works as it is, this is not so much a criticism as it is an exhortation to read the book before viewing it.)

“The Road” is a flawed film but a great one, brutally affecting and finally, unexpectedly, uplifting. It crystallizes our greatest fears about our own capabilities into a truly original and discomfiting vision of the world, and it very nearly does McCarthy’s book justice. Viewers may leave the theater not entirely sure what they just witnessed, but “The Road” will stick with them, as will the pressing questions it poses.