The Gown – student newspaper at Queen's University Belfast.

REVIEW: The Road

One of the greatest anticipated films of 2010, and definitely a must see,  ‘The Road’ is set in a world that has fallen apart after an unexplained post-apocalyptic event, and follows the trials and tribulations of a man and his son as they attempt to travel south to the coastline.  As director John Hillcoat has adapted from the original Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Cormac McCarthy, there’s a high level of expectations after the seamless transition of ‘No Country for Old Men’ to the silver screen by the Cohen Brothers in 2007.  I’m confident to say that if you’ve read the book or not, Hillcoat has successfully translated the encapsulating feel of the novel into a powerful and intense drama.

BY LAURA SHEARER

www.queensfilmtheatre.com

‘The Road’ is extremely enjoyable, as without warning we are immediately immersed in the world of the father and son.   The film begins without introduction to the current situation, so even if you haven’t seen the trailer or know anything of the story-line, you are quickly transported into this strange environment.  Hillcoat’s genuine skill as a director is his ability to pleasantly force his audience into that nervous notion of ‘got to keep your wits about you’ that plays suitably into the major themes of the film.  The atmosphere of the environment that the characters inhabit is distinctly and very personally addressed to the viewer by infrequent flashbacks to the man’s peacefully serene life pre-apocalyptic event.  Those first few seconds that give an indulgent notion of awareness that we are in a strange and unexplored place, quickly give way to an odd realisation of the stark reality presented to us.

If anything, Hillcoat is perfectly capable of developing a remarkable tale of human bonding that interestingly questions man’s primal instincts and what we deem today as sophisticated culture.  The relationship of the father and son is both ordinary and undeniably unique as it is straddled with issues of domestic and social boundaries.  Likewise, the relationship between man and woman is complex under the given circumstances, but there is an obvious connection between the pair, as there is with the man and boy.  Viggo Mortensen is splendid and seemingly unchallenged by his emotionally difficult depiction of an unhinging man.  There are some surprisingly delicate performances from Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron and Kodi Smit-McPhee, all of which exhibit some wonderfully multi-dimensional acting.  More importantly, the characters are treated with unexpected depth and deploy a discursive element of humanistic tenderness.

The cinematography is astounding, plausibly depicting the immediate landscapes and situations both delicately and with an intense level of detail, which only makes the viewing experience so much more pleasurable.  The slow pace of the film is admittedly hypnotic and the soundtrack gives a heart-felt dream-like vibe to the entire piece.  The constantly changing camera angles offer a subtle quality that makes the film truly memorable from start to finish.  An unexpected aspect is the honestly photogenic aesthetic appeal of the film.  After every series of shots follows a perfect example of deep-focus photography that would impressively put Orson Welles to shame.  The dark colour palette of the film manages to follow through as descriptive, but it works so well with the style of the film that after a while it becomes unrecognisable, and determinedly unable to be detached from.

Whilst there’s umpteen films  released in the past few years that deal with the same post-apocalyptic, ending earth sort of idea, ‘The Road’ stands out as one of the most intense.  As many other critics have suggested,  it does reference quite a lot of the same possible events that these other films have dealt with, but it seems to do so in such a stylistic tone that it has defined itself as the film that in a moment, changed the world forever.

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 3:27 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.