Based faithfully on Cormac McCarthy’s beloved, best-selling and Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, THE ROAD is the highly anticipated big screen adaptation of McCarthy’s (author of No Country For Old Men) poignant tale of humanity and survival.
Starring Academy Award-nominee Viggo Mortensen, John Hillcoat directs an all-star cast featuring Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce, Michael Kenneth Williams and young newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee in this epic post-apocalyptic story of a father (Mortensen) and his young son (Smit-McPhee) as they avert danger at every turn, journeying across America to reach the coast. Click here to view the movie trailer.
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Cormac McCarthy has a storied and celebrated history of writing novels that showcase humanity – including some of the barren deserts of humanity. Author of ten books, including Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses and No Country for Old Men, McCarthy threads his work with elements of desolation, death, anger, and intensity. THE ROAD is established as a post-apocalyptic novel of contrasts – horrific destruction is paired next to warm, critical moments of hope and faith. It serves as a powerful parable that evaluates what the world would be like should humanity run unchecked but also shows the persistent hope that still exists in unfathomable wreckage.
The Man (Viggo Mortensen) and The Boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) – “each the other’s world entire,” as McCarthy describes them in his novel – are on the move with all their precious possessions—whatever food and clothing they can uncover, utensils and tools, plastic bags, tarps, blankets and anything else to keep warm in the freezing outdoors.
The Road presents the audience with a world that is a shell of its former glory. Gone is the social structure, along with the order and beauty of the world. In this new reality, the whole mission of the father is to journey to the coast in hopes of finding safety and warmth. But the journey isn’t easy; the perilous unknown exists in every forward step.
As The Man and The Boy travel along on foot, following the once-magnificent American highway system west toward the ocean, they hide in the woods and in old, abandoned structures, any shelter they can improvise that keeps them safe from the elements and the wandering bands who would think nothing of taking everything from them. They come across all sorts of desperate people. There is a road gang, a bunch of tough men who have somehow managed to fuel their truck. There are scavengers and hunters of anything that moves.
THE ROAD is an adventure story, a horror story, a road movie and ultimately a love story between a father and his son, between a man and his wife, as it is a celebration of the inextinguishable will to live. It is a thrilling evocation of human endurance and an unflinching examination of people at their worst—and at their best.
To view commentary from actor Viggo Mortensen about this movie click here.
The Road:
Starring: Robert Duvall, Garret Dillahunt, Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron. In theatres everywhere November 25th 2009.