The Road

After his "No Country for Old Men" was successfully filmed, "The Road" is another terrific adaptation of a Cormac McCarthy novel. Director John Hillcoat does a first-class job of conjuring up a little hope on the horizon even in the deepest gloom.

The world as we know it no longer exists. Few people have survived the great cataclysm, and among them fear, violence, and hopelessness now reign. For ten years now, a desperate father (Viggo Mortensen) and his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) have wandered through a bleak world where the sun is obscured by ash and every day is anew a struggle for food and water. Memories of his wife (Charlize Theron) and a determination to impart something like humanity to his son, despite all the cruelty surrounding them, give the man the strength he needs. But the more he is confronted with the desolation and cannibalistic violence that seems to dominate the rest of humanity, the more his courage to live dwindles...

There have been numerous end-times visions that have hit our movie theaters in the recent past. From "I am Legend" to "Book of Eli", heroic survivors have always had to fight their way through apocalyptic scenarios. But compared to what John Hillcoat puts his viewers through, the other end-times films seemed almost like cheerful summer comedies. In "The Road" the hunger, the cold, the all-encompassing hopelessness is made palpable to the audience by the fantastically bleak imagery, the atmospheric music by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, but also by the intense acting of the great Viggo Mortensen and the no less talented Kodi Smit-McPhee. As a result, "The Road" becomes not only a visual experience, but also a physical one that demands a great deal from the moviegoer.

As the story, ominously suspenseful in its stillness and silence, progresses, the viewer is drawn further and further into it emotionally. But this is definitely something you should get involved with. For Hillcoat does an excellent job of allowing a small ray of hope to shine through the darkness without it seeming contrived, implausible, or even cheesy. His appeal not to lose one's humanity even in the greatest hopelessness is one of the most powerful things to be seen in cinema in recent times.

Surely, "The Road" is an exhausting film, extremely depressing and pessimistic for large parts. Not necessarily the best conditions for an enjoyable evening at the cinema. But if you are looking for a particularly intense, superbly acted and relentlessly powerful cinema of a special kind, this road movie of the apocalyptic kind will more than serve you. Absolutely recommended!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp