Friday, November 27, 2009

Review: The Road (film)

NO MOVIE SPOILERS



The Road may be my favorite novel (I don't read much fiction). I have been very excited for the film's release to provide an added visual to the horrific post-civilization world envisioned by Cormac McCarthy. The film is as loyal to the book as is possible. The main problem with the movie is that a book centered so much on one character's internal dialogue is difficult (or impossible) to translate to film. It loses a lot of the nuances that fuel the atmosphere.

I was pleased with the film overall... until I realized some of the key scenes left out of it. (Some were even shot and left out.) The Road does include some of the anxious and powerful scenes that make the book so special. I won't mention which ones so as to not give anything away. However, what I consider to be a scene from the book that captures all of the potential horrors awaiting the boy and his Papa was not in the film. Where was the marching army with slaves, impregnated birthing slaves, and makeshift weaponry?! The way McCarthy describes that army in the book was ominous and showed what could become of the boy if he was not careful.

The movie still did provide some cool visuals to accompany the book. On its own, it cannot carry the weight of the book... and perhaps it is unfair to expect a film to do so.
Without having read the book, I suspect the film would be an interesting tale of a man and his son's survival but still less a picture of the dystopian world they are surviving in and that was the goal of the director.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I would second your statements. Also the dialogue in the movie came across as totally cheeseball, whereas in the book its terse and understated. I think the translation between book and movie totally didn't work there.

matt lucas

10:10 AM  

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