18.The RoadReleased November 25th, 2009 (in North America)Directed by John HillcoatStarring Viggo Mortensen, Kodi-SmitMcPhee, Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron, and Guy Pearce The Road remains to this day the only film I've watched on impulse at the theater, and I'm so glad I did. I showed up too early for another film I was anticipating, so I chose this because it had Viggo Mortensen. I left the theater sad and cold. I watch movies alone, and this film really makes you feel alone in the world with Viggo's character and the kid.
The Road is based on a book of the same name by Cormac McCarthy. The Road takes place in a post-apocalyptic United States. The event is never explained or talked about. Nobody really has a name in this film. Viggo's character is 'the dad' or 'the man', the child is called 'the boy' and The Man's late wife, who has a few minutes of screentime, is just called 'The Woman.' There are very few characters in this film outside of The Man and The Boy. The entire film follows them traveling down the east coast in an effort to reach Florida, specifically a harbor, from which they might be able to get further south to a warmer, hopefully more livable climate.
That's it, that's the film. It's the tale of a father struggling to protect his little boy in a world that is beyond dying - it is gray, dead, a husk of its former self. You hear ominous booms and rumbles in the distance that are never explained, and the skies are always miserably dark. So many people have died, and food so scarce, that people have even turned to cannibalism. The Man and The Boy have no protection except for a handgun with two bullets left in the chamber, reserved for themselves if it comes to that.
Thematically it's all about survival and inner strength and squeezing tight to what you can hold on to in your life. Every encounter with another human is a very tense affair. Who do you trust, and how much can you trust them, in a world where there's only the slightest sliver of hope for anybody, and no guarantee of food of any kind? Do you show kindness and mercy? Do you kill on sight? Do you fall asleep with a stranger? Viggo Mortensen does some brilliant acting without speaking in a lot of scenes. He really looks like a haggard, tired, broken man with no patience for anybody else except his son, and his son acts as a good foil for that type of character, and the conflict is visible on Viggo's face for much of the film.
My favorite thing about The Road is The Man teaching his kid how to survive and be strong. The best scenes are the ones where the kid disagrees with his dad, or vice versa, when they butt heads - learning from each other in the process. The dad hates that the kid has to grow up in hell on Earth; the kid hates that the dad doesn't show any warmth or kindness to other people. The kid's naive nature clashes with the dad's protective nature and other times they're two peas in a pod. They're all they have for each other. And when they come across a below-ground shelter full of food and a house that hasn't been destroyed yet, you really feel like they've finally hit a well earned victory, even if it won't last forever.
The magic of this film is in the little moments, like when they find a vending machine and the kid gets his first taste of Coca Cola. Or when the boy helps comfort his father as he develops a cold out on the road one night. It's such a sad, hopeless film, yet in those moments I feel hope for them and their love for each other is palpable. The Road is all about the journey, not the destination, and the last act is so god damn heartbreaking to me that it's hard to watch. I don't know if this is a tougher watch than Requiem for a Dream, but it feels a lot more personal. Super powerful movie that's stuck with me from the first viewing.