Flicked Off: "The Road"
So, as you know, due to all the jokes and stuff about it, The Road was a book about a guy and his kid who are heading south in a hideous post-apocalytpic United States, in the hopes-one sort of gathers-that if there won’t be food and maybe some still-living trees there that maybe at least it will be vaguely warm down there. Nuclear (or whatever) winter kills! So do people, who are the only food left, which is why this is a perfect movie for Thanksgiving release. So this very spare book became a movie, and it is very rare that a popular movie can be as equally spare as a spare book, and that is the case with this, where the movie becomes movie-like. It becomes cinematical. This is not all terrible. John Hillcoat, who directed The Proposition, which, it must be remembered, was an pre-apocalyptic nightmare of a film, which is to say, an Australian historical film, that was produced by, among others, Tina Brown’s brother Chris, and so he can strike a balance between austerity and exciting movie-ness. Nick Cave wrote that very excellent screenplay for The Proposition, and also did its quite great soundtrack, along with his regular collaborator Warren Ellis, who actually is Australian. Cave and Hillcoat are now at work on a screenplay for The Wettest Country in the World, which is a fictionalized true-life book about bootleggers in Virginia. But, despite their devotion to each other, Nick Cave is where The Road goes terribly wrong.
The soundtrack could not be more terrible. I say this as a long-time devotee of Nick Cave. He is a musical hero. My love for him endures all manner of records, but three of his four records in the 00’s are just fantastic and the fourth ain’t bad. This miserable soundtrack though is sweeping where it should be meditative; it is tinkly and plinky with piano meanderings where it should be authoritative; it is abstract where it should direct; it is annoying and grating and absurdly repetitive throughout. I despised it. If this soundtrack were a pigeon, I would bite its head off on some stage. It was terribly, terribly bad!
That the script escapes criticism is a lucky thing for its writer, Joe Penhall, the English playwright for whom this is the first big Hollywood break. Certain liberties must be taken! And hence we have the appearance of the boy’s mother, the man’s wife, who is not a figure in the book because she was way already dead. This extra material is actually handled as well as anyone could ever expect!
Obviously, Viggo Mortensen, the star of this here puppy, is exceptionally good. I mean, when has he been bad? Never that is when. I mean, he was good in GI Jane, so what do you expect. He is also extremely emaciated. (Again.)
A large part of your issue with this movie, I expect, besides the despicable, ruinous, hateful soundtrack, is whether you can deal with children and their constant whining. If you have a child, you will probably love this movie! If you dislike children, well, this is pretty much like watching Mame or Annie for you. You will be thinking, “Oh, just leave the child to DIE ALREADY.” So there’s that whole issue. The child in question is relatively inoffensive as children go but of course he blubbers quite a bit and does annoying things, which I suppose is in keeping with how children are in real life, apocalypse or no.