Movies

This is an unforgettable excerpt of the novel The Road stated as With the initial gray beam he rose and left the boy resting and walked out to the road and squatted and calculated the country to the south.   It was desolate, soundless, and godless.   He reflected the month was October but he was not sure.   He had not set aside a calendar for years.   They were moving south. There will be no ongoing another winter here.   With that, from the author of the Oscar-winning adaptation of No Country for Old Men, arrived another best-selling novel and winner of 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Literature by Cormac McCarthy entitled The Road (Maslin, 2006). The story is an extraordinary voyage of a father and son, off in search of development after a post-traumatic apocalypse which reduces America to a cannibalistic barbarism.  This is also a very horrendous version which comes to the big screen to spur you on each and every scene. The viewers must get ready to be shocked, sensitively devastated and heart-broken with their precarious adventure and their great effort to surpass all who come their way
   
In the novel, Viggo Mortensen (the unidentified man) played a loving father to his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee who is the anonymous boy) who had never-ending bleak questions and searching for adamant answers (Maslin, 2006). Charlize Theron plays as the charming wife who will be seen for the most part through flashbacks as she committed suicide before they all experience this unexpected earth-shattering incident.  Robert Duvall as the old and failing man astonished to see a boy alive and had survived a disastrous happening (Maslin, 2006).  Guy Pierce portrayed a father traveling with his family in search of other survivors.  The story is about a father and son besieged to get to the coast without knowledge of what awaited them there.  Set in a weather-beaten and deserted America, they both worked on a voyage without anything but a three-bullet pistol to defend them from other survivors who were rowdy and have resorted to cannibalism. It is also about the unflagging love of a father to his son.   His son has become his motive and inspiration to get to their target as their common goal while they fought each moment to live on and live longer than they could probably be.  As they travel, they scrounge for food and seek out for safe sanctuary to survive winter and the lawless people they bump into from time to time.  They wear reeking clothes and shoes.  They also slept on in damped blankets with a lamp between them to keep them warm in the cold and mysterious nights and wandering if God has really abandoned them.  Both father and son tried to keep themselves sane for they knew that the father is dying and his sickness will not make him stay longer with his son as he crouched coughing.  In the end, after their incredible ascending effort they reach the south but did find the deliverance they had hoped for.  The father died and the despondent child was left on his own.  One family found him and took him as one of them to perhaps generate an upcoming human race.

Moreover, Joe Penhall had written the script as in the book which is very loyal to the novel however it missed McCarthys biblical description style of writing.  The movie was directed by John Hillcoat who is an Australian director best known for the hit film The Proposition and who believed that he can produce reality in McCarthys craft but the relationship between the father and the son would have come out of Viggo and Smit-McPhees performances.  Hillcoat has captured McCarthys creative writing and illustrious imagination by showing it in the entire scenes.  It was so believable that he wanted it to reveal sensitive pragmatism. We also remember one part of the novel, which stated as Dark and dreary, spine-tingling and very unpredictable.  For so many times, we will see disgusting scenes like babies being cooked and people in cages as their bodies are being detached by others. We will also view corpse at the doorway and in plain field. The roads was caked with ashes and plants all burned and withered.  Besides, there were no signs of animals or other living effects that can be frenzied in order to recuperate force and stability as they march to their destination.  Hence, the film was set in a landscape with absolute sadness and lifeless scene.  With that, the only positive thing is the love of a father to his son which is all that matters.

Essentially, we will be interested to know more excerpts from McCarthys exceptional novel.  The book itself is a page turner and most definitely the film will also be.  It has lived up to McCarthys novel and it has been reiterated here that without the impressive talents of the cast, this movie would not have been a success. It is again an impeccable film by Hillcoat and we could salute him for that.  The cast and crews are to be recognized as well as they have captured the imagination of an outstanding novelist who continues to engage his thoughts in the minds of his readers.  Be ready to be awed and impressed with this never-to -be-repeated experience.  We might know more of the twist and turns of the movie as it unravel the truth of civilization after an unanticipated catastrophe.  We may also feel the love and grief of a father whose sole concern is the protection of his son from the starvation, cold, trauma and attacks from remaining lawless people who used to be sane. Thus, this movie has shown love and hope when there is nobody left in the world and has demonstrated that no matter what lies ahead to keep on marching and reach your destination. Hence, we need to connect with the taunting yet riveting journey of a father and his young son as they struggle to see what is at the other side of the road.