{"id":6072,"date":"2009-11-11T11:02:18","date_gmt":"2009-11-11T19:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=6072"},"modified":"2009-11-11T12:01:14","modified_gmt":"2009-11-11T20:01:14","slug":"the-road-john-hillcoat-2009-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=6072","title":{"rendered":"The Road (John Hillcoat, 2009): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Lea Encarnacion<\/a>. \u00a0Viewed at Graumann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood during the AFI Film Festival, 2009.<\/p>\n

\"TheBased on the Pulitzer-Prize winning novel by Cormac McCarthy,\u00a0The Road<\/em><\/a> tells the story of a man\u2019s journey through a post-apocalyptic America with his son, trying to survive and steer clear of cannibals and encountering other survivors like himself.\u00a0 The film is about the struggle to survive and is a reflection and a metaphor for the long, hard road of life.\u00a0 Viggo Mortensen\u2019s performance is arrestingly brilliant in this film, while Charlize Theron plays a smaller, supporting role as the man\u2019s wife.<\/p>\n

The Road is directed by John Hillcoat, whose past films include The Proposition<\/a>, To Have And To Hold<\/a>, and Ghosts… of the Civil Dead<\/a>. \u00a0Known for his powerful and disturbing style of directing dramas and frequently collaborating with musician Nick Cave, the Australian writer\/director has successfully brought the screen adaptation to life, pleasing both audiences who have previously read the novel and those who have not.<\/p>\n

After an unexplained catastrophe somewhere in America, a smoky darkness envelops the ravaged and burnt earth, where a man trudges along with his son in tattered clothing, homeless through gray barren forests. \u00a0They come across a house while looking for food, where a horrific scene of rotting corpses, some still half alive, awaits them although they are able to escape. \u00a0Interweaving scenes throughout the movie recall the past where the story of the man\u2019s wife is told.\u00a0\u00a0Through these flashbacks we learn that his wife couldn\u2019t handle their family situation and walked off into the darkness, never to be seen again.\u00a0 Nevertheless, the man\u2019s love for his son remains strong and he protects him throughout the journey where their father-son bond is the main focus of the film.<\/p>\n

They encounter other people, while trying to find food and shelter and figuring out whether to help them out or take their belongings for themselves.\u00a0 In one scene, the man decides to swim out to a ship in order to search for supplies, leaving his son alone on the beach.\u00a0 When he comes back ashore, everything has been stolen and they rush to the man who stole their belongings.\u00a0 Tense and against his son’s pleas for him to stop, the man forces him to strip and takes away everything, leaving the other man naked and shivering in the cold.<\/p>\n

This leads to the questions of what really are the most significant things in our lives?\u00a0 Is it our morals, principles, our humanity?\u00a0 Our relationships, our family? When you face a situation like that will you choose to help others or fight them to get yourself ahead?<\/p>\n

The bleak, colorless and barren landscape is so visually stunning that the man and his son, along with the whole audience cannot look away.\u00a0 The emptiness and desolation reminds me of films like\u00a0The Mist<\/a>, Silent Hill<\/a> and other ‘end of the world’ drama\/horror flicks.\u00a0 The major difference is that this film has meaning and a real message that anyone can take in and learn from.\u00a0 The Road is deeply moving, amazingly well done and definitely a must see for any Viggo Mortensen fan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Lea Encarnacion. \u00a0Viewed at Graumann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood during the AFI Film Festival, 2009. Based on the Pulitzer-Prize winning novel by Cormac McCarthy,\u00a0The Road tells the story of a man\u2019s journey through a post-apocalyptic America with his son, trying to survive and steer clear of cannibals and encountering other survivors like himself.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":618,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afi-filmfest-2009","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/618"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6072\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}