When civilization collapses, for whatever reason, barbarism is quick to return. In a brutish land in which only the most vicious survive, the good man is at the mercy of violent gangs who will take all he has, even his life. In the Hughes Brothers’ The Book of Eli, which opened earlier this month and is still showing around town, the good man — played by Denzel Washington — is upheld by his Christian faith and some impressive martial arts skills. In John Hillcoat’s The Road, which opens today, the lead character has neither religion, karate, cool nor grunge chic to get him through the wasteland that the world has become. He has no mission other than to survive, because giving up is mean, weak and selfish.
The Road presents a world not dissimilar to that of The Book of Eli, but Hillcoat has removed every element that makes the latter an adventure film and everything that could link it to other post-apocalyptic classics such as Mad Max or The Day of the Triffids. Viggo Mortensen’s character has not a single movie hero attribute. His only ambition is to survive, and ensure that his son survives — though given the world they live in, it is far from certain that any kind of salvation is to be found at the end of their tribulations. The road that father and son follow may lead somewhere, but where that might be, and whether it might be any better, is anybody’s guess. The Road does not even try to answer that question, and this calculated indifference is what makes it such a powerful and disturbing film.
Mortensen and Charlize Theron are a couple who decide that despite the apocalypse, which has destroyed most of the population and reduced the land to a barren moonscape, life will go on, and commit to this belief by having a son. The hardships of raising a family finally prove too much for Theron’s character, and she walks off into the wilderness, a calculated act of suicide. It is a testament to the bleakness of this film’s outlook that her decision seems entirely justifiable compared to her husband’s almost manic faith in ... well, that’s just it, a faith in something that he is not able to articulate.
Left with his son, Mortensen decides that they will walk out from the frozen wastes of their mountain home and head for the sea. Along the way they meet gangs of marauding men and cannibal communes. The hardship and horror are presented in a matter-of-fact manner with little attempt to heighten the atmosphere with cinematic tricks. The danger is real, and death always preferable to capture.
The voice of innocence is presented by Kodi Smit-McPhee, but in a gormless and wet fashion. Even as we see that Mortensen’s efforts to keep his son alive rot his soul and skew his moral sense, his response seems entirely comprehensible — more comprehensible than his son’s, who wants to share and help others regardless of their own peril. Why indeed should the father share his puny store of food with strangers on the road, even the tramp Eli, the only named character in the film. Eli (as also in the Book of Eli, a variant on the name of God as spoken in Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic), appears briefly, eats and then regurgitates a can of peaches, then stomps off to an uncertain future. In The Road, God may have created the world, but in its destruction, he seems to be totally indifferent.
While Mortensen escapes many horrors, he is not above perpetrating some himself, and a scene where he faces off with a thief (Michael K. Williams), taking all the man had stolen and everything else he possessed despite the protestations of his son, is painful to watch. While Mortensen does not play his character for sympathy, it is a mark of his success in the role that while we may not care for the man, we certainly care for the loss of his humanity.
Despite its deliberate pacing and muddy palette, The Road is worth watching for Mortensen’s magnificent performance as a man who, in his efforts to pass on civilized values, sacrifices his own humanity.
Though the story is simple, its detached treatment of a horrific event allows the ramifications to linger long after the credits roll.
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