The Road: Horrific

Watching "The Road" is a horrific experience. I fear that a fragile person could be sent into a breakdown by it. Word to the wise: if you find yourself deeply shaken halfway through the film, consider staying with it until the end. There is a modicum of hope shown in the last five minutes that might help.

There's a real long wait for that last five minutes though. For an hour-and-a-half you are bludgeoned by one of the grimmest stories ever imagined. Grimness is a valuable, I would even say essential, artistic tool. But it has to be used responsibly to pursue an artistic end of very high merit. Used irresponsibly, grim imaginings become torture-porn. At times "The Road" borders slightly on torture-porn, decreasing some of its artistic value. Incidentally, I would say the same about Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name, upon which the film is based.

The only major characters are a father of about 40 (played in a very intense, realistic way by Viggo Mortensen) and his son of about 12. The two are roaming on highways in the aftermath of some kind of apocalypse. They are heading south in hopes of escaping the ever-worsening winters. I won't reveal all the details, but I can say that they are not the only survivors. The things that some of the survivors do is blood-curdling. You will have difficulty shaking off the memory of some of it. There is also the horror of imagining what the boy's fate would be if the father dies, something the story considers head-on.

The question: why is it a valuable exercise to imagine horrific circumstances like this? Is it a cautionary tale aimed at waking up a slumbering populace to the dangers of global warming, nuclear proliferation, or some other apocalyptic threat? Surely not. Cormac McCarthy may not be the greatest novelist of our time, but he's certainly more than just a political propagandist -- and the film's director, John Hillcoat, is also more than that.

My best guess is that McCarthy's imagination is naturally dark, and he feels drawn to examining how ordinary people would behave in terrifying circumstances. To what lengths would a loving father go to protect his son in the midst of hell on earth? What moral difficulties would he face? What inner demons might plague him? The problem is that McCarthy didn't learn enough through the course of his thought exercise to make it fully worthwhile going with him on the journey. He learned some things, but not quite enough for me to recommend highly the book or film.

But I commend McCarthy and all those associated with the film adaptation for the courage to explore difficult ideas. Even when only partial successes, these endeavors help to keep the human imagination alive. "The Road" is a brave work of art.