The Road

Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on June 2010

A man and a boy (superbly played by Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee) trudge across a namelessly devastated America, searching for food while avoiding becoming same for roaming gangs of cannibals. Probably the best of the recent spate of post-Apocalyptic movies, this one gets the atmosphere right and the characters, too. But that said, it’s a movie, and lacks the restrained prose that made the novel by difficult-to-adapt Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men) so emotionally effective. Worth seeing, but don’t go looking for rainbows. Cameos by Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce and Robert Duvall.