Review of the movie version of "The Road"
Following up on my review of The Road in (audio) book format.
I liked the movie of The Road more than the book.
Where it succeeds:
1. In the movie, the Father is the predominant POV character, rather than in the book where he is sole POV with encyclopaedic knowledge (a common authorial-voice mechanism in sci-fi). When this is combined with script changes, he comes across as having a didacted fixation on preferring "survival at any cost save cannibalism' to "actually living." This understandably angers other people who would rather, in the case of the mother, commit well-thought-out family suicide, or, in the case of the son, socialize with other children (who might have parents that will eat you). Rather than in thebook where Dad is the Voice of Reason, in the movie, Dad thinks he is the Voice of Reason, which leads him to ignore constructive feedback from his son. He also isn't unreasonably hostile, so much as scared.
2. There is a better mix of sexes. The road agents are still guys, which, to my knowledge parallels most forms of banditry. But there are female cannibals. And there is a woman migrant with a child - who are basically a copy of the father/son protagonists. And in the movie, the woman next to the man with the bow is not left behind and dismissed as harmless, but is the survivor of a couple who thought they were defending themselves against the protagonists. And there are no longer concubines kept around to make tasty babies.
3. The sendentary cannibals capture the "banality of evil" as they return home, presumably from looking for anything or anyone to eat, and carry on normal conversation, while they have hobbled and confined prisoners in a dark mazelike cellar. it's still not a good way to manage human foodstuffs (when you could kill them, salt them, and store them in the cellar), but the mood of casual inhumanity is well played. When they realize they've been intruded upon, they look around but don't go hunting for the protagonists, presumably because they're not intrisically cruel demons in human form (like in the book) so much as sociopathically selfish people doing what is to them, a sensible thing.
4. The disaster is more plausible. It seems to be some kind of seismic/volcanic event. There aren't freak lightning strikes and mysteriously localized burnt patches. It's not that everything is dead - except conveniently inedible fungi - so much as that photosynthesis is no longer a viable energy source for multicellular plants. It may be temporary, it may not. If it is temporary, it may still last too long for humanity.
5. A lot of superfluous scenes are trimmed. This said, it loses some degree of pacing - see below.
6. The father displays a lot of physical affection towards his son. He cuddles him, tucks him in, bathes him, cuts his hair, etcetera. This is good to see. it wasn't exactly absent in the book, but most of it made it into the 2-hour movie, which is a lot - especially for Hollywood.
I see the movie failing in two places:
1. It lacks the slooooow pacing of the book. The book is short, but listening to it takes about six hours. So you have time to wait and worry for the characters. The movie is over in less than two. This could have been changed with some slow shots.
2. This postapocayptic American Southeast is almost entirely White. This is odd because no character's race was mentioned in the book - including after they crossed from the US into Mexico. I have not read enough McCarthy (not that I particularly want to now) to tell whether this was deliberate. It could be that McCarthy was of the opinion that the racism in our society would cease to function in an economy based on small mobile pods of scavengers and cannibals. Or it could be that he just wasn't thinking. I'd have to read more of his other books to say. But the movie casting agent seems to have interpreted "race unspecified" as "White," then took a look at the cast, and tried to cover zer ass with some last-minute substiutions.
I liked the movie of The Road more than the book.
Where it succeeds:
1. In the movie, the Father is the predominant POV character, rather than in the book where he is sole POV with encyclopaedic knowledge (a common authorial-voice mechanism in sci-fi). When this is combined with script changes, he comes across as having a didacted fixation on preferring "survival at any cost save cannibalism' to "actually living." This understandably angers other people who would rather, in the case of the mother, commit well-thought-out family suicide, or, in the case of the son, socialize with other children (who might have parents that will eat you). Rather than in thebook where Dad is the Voice of Reason, in the movie, Dad thinks he is the Voice of Reason, which leads him to ignore constructive feedback from his son. He also isn't unreasonably hostile, so much as scared.
2. There is a better mix of sexes. The road agents are still guys, which, to my knowledge parallels most forms of banditry. But there are female cannibals. And there is a woman migrant with a child - who are basically a copy of the father/son protagonists. And in the movie, the woman next to the man with the bow is not left behind and dismissed as harmless, but is the survivor of a couple who thought they were defending themselves against the protagonists. And there are no longer concubines kept around to make tasty babies.
3. The sendentary cannibals capture the "banality of evil" as they return home, presumably from looking for anything or anyone to eat, and carry on normal conversation, while they have hobbled and confined prisoners in a dark mazelike cellar. it's still not a good way to manage human foodstuffs (when you could kill them, salt them, and store them in the cellar), but the mood of casual inhumanity is well played. When they realize they've been intruded upon, they look around but don't go hunting for the protagonists, presumably because they're not intrisically cruel demons in human form (like in the book) so much as sociopathically selfish people doing what is to them, a sensible thing.
4. The disaster is more plausible. It seems to be some kind of seismic/volcanic event. There aren't freak lightning strikes and mysteriously localized burnt patches. It's not that everything is dead - except conveniently inedible fungi - so much as that photosynthesis is no longer a viable energy source for multicellular plants. It may be temporary, it may not. If it is temporary, it may still last too long for humanity.
5. A lot of superfluous scenes are trimmed. This said, it loses some degree of pacing - see below.
6. The father displays a lot of physical affection towards his son. He cuddles him, tucks him in, bathes him, cuts his hair, etcetera. This is good to see. it wasn't exactly absent in the book, but most of it made it into the 2-hour movie, which is a lot - especially for Hollywood.
I see the movie failing in two places:
1. It lacks the slooooow pacing of the book. The book is short, but listening to it takes about six hours. So you have time to wait and worry for the characters. The movie is over in less than two. This could have been changed with some slow shots.
2. This postapocayptic American Southeast is almost entirely White. This is odd because no character's race was mentioned in the book - including after they crossed from the US into Mexico. I have not read enough McCarthy (not that I particularly want to now) to tell whether this was deliberate. It could be that McCarthy was of the opinion that the racism in our society would cease to function in an economy based on small mobile pods of scavengers and cannibals. Or it could be that he just wasn't thinking. I'd have to read more of his other books to say. But the movie casting agent seems to have interpreted "race unspecified" as "White," then took a look at the cast, and tried to cover zer ass with some last-minute substiutions.