Disaster movies are an established genre and their heyday was the 1970s, when claasics of modern kitsch like Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure pitted ordinary people against natural forces gone ballistic, and the audience celebrated mans triumph over adversity. Over the intervening decades the disasters have gotten bigger and bigger – think The Day After Tomorrow and 2012 – but the plot lines have generally maintained a consistent commitment to portraying everyday people banding together to overcome near impossible odds.
The Road is an altogether different type of disaster movie and strikes altogether different tone. This film does not deliver a redemptive storyline and any triumphs are small and personal. It’s an original achievement, and the vision remains very close to Cormac McCarthy’s bleak novel, a fact that undoubtedly helps its narrative to sweep you along with its story of a father and son trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic future.
Viggo Mortensen plays the father and he carries the role expertly. Likewise Kodi Smit-McPhee is a very talented young actor playing his son. For such an emotionally centered film these performances are crucial, and the actors both deliver the goods. There are appearances from Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce and Charlize Theron with Duvall’s turn being the most memorable. However this film is all about father and son and as such the other characters are relatively unimportant.
The apocalyptic plot that propels this film allows the narrative to explore the darkest recesses of the human soul, as such we are treated to a nightmarish vision of how man might behave if there was little left to live or care for. This is a world where people are zombies not because they are acting beyond their control, but rather because they choose to cannibalize for reasons of survival. It is indeed a dark vision but not without overtones of possible redemption or indeed religious inflections.
Is it still a disaster movie if the good guys don’t win? Whatever it is, I liked it enormously and it is hard to find fault with any aspect of its production. The cinematography deserves special mention as do the subtle but effective special effects; this is a very beautifully constructed piece of cinema.
