John Hillcoat
The Road

THE REVIEW

As soon as the credits finished rolling, the memory that prevails is that of watching "Into The Wild": Sean Penn's film from two years ago. The similarities between the two works are nonexistent, except perhaps for the superior quality of the photography. What unites them is that they are based on two of the books I have appreciated most recently. In both cases, I entered the cinema a bit hesitant. Because when you read a good book, almost always the film is a bit of a disappointment, a surrogate: it is rare indeed for a cinematic adaptation to resonate with your imagination.

“The Road” was finished filming over a year ago: when the financial crisis hit the U.S.A. In a context of rising unemployment and fears for millions of families, this film was not considered suitable. Better some pointless shoot-'em-up, fantasy, and cheap comedy for a few laughs; Hollywood must have thought something like that. And so, “The Road” waited for months to finally become suitable/congruent with the economic and psychological climate of various countries.

Thick fog, crooked and limping trees. The transformation in nature of life that gives way to death. Without sun, without sounds, without background movements in an unreal and chilling silence, a shopping cart, armed with a rearview mirror, is laboriously pushed down a road. A dilapidated strip of asphalt, climbing a mountain pass, is painfully traveled by a man and a boy. Father and son. An interminable perilous journey leading south. Salvation: or rather, hope.

Director John Hillcoat and the production could have destroyed the novel: adjusted it and trivialized it by creating an anonymous horror exploiting the context, perhaps post-nuclear, in which cannibalism reigns and dominates. It reminds me of what was done with “I Am Legend”: a very distant relative of the excellent book. They could have focused the plot on the adventures of the mini family unit on the run, exalting their exploits, turning them into heroes and perhaps finding inspiration for a finale with pompous arches.
Fortunately, however, the heart of the book remains intact. The total love of a father for a son even in a desperate situation. Love that manifests itself in sweet and tremendous gestures: the gift of a precious can of Coca-Cola, the last bullet ready to be generously and repeatedly offered to the child's head to spare him suffering. Love shown by condemning a thief to die of cold: a necessary lesson to make him grow up quickly and accustom him, therefore, to the desperate environment in which he will have to live without his father's protection. Love in the simple and profound questions and the equally reassuring and harsh answers.

It is an outstanding performance delivered by Viggo Mortensen (his best in my opinion), a bit less so by Kodi Smit-McPhee and Charlize Theron. With short, quick, and intense flashbacks, a terrible story is told. The film, like “The Day After,” is distressing. Not so much for the rare but strong tension scenes present, but because it depicts a nightmare world temporally close: a possible future not the product of science fiction. A future in which, in the face of the lack of hope, despair inexorably takes over and the animalistic instinct returns to prominence. Father and son are "heroes," whose story deserves to be told because they remain human in their journey south.

The photography is superb. It manages, as stated in the beginning, to depict the setting I had imagined thanks to the absence of warm colors, the concurrent presence of suffocating mist, and a hostile nature in which shelter is nonetheless sought. A good film that I hope will manage to encourage many to read a book of rare beauty. A masterpiece.

Ilfreddo