First and foremost, let it be known that John Hillcoat’s The Road is about as depressing as watching a limbless puppy cry. The film is about as irrepressibly bleak as a McCarthy adaptation should be, and it doesn’t lose any of its poignancy as a result. The plot centres around a nameless father, played by Viggo Mortensen, as he attempts to ensure the survival of his young son in post-apocalyptic America defined by barren, grey landscapes and the ever present threat of cannibalism from its more violent and starving inhabitants.

When cannibalism eventually enters the screen, Hillcoat moves from the eerily suggestive to the downright horrific with alarming speed. It starts with a lingering shot of a chopping block and axe here, a close up of an empty meat hook there, and without so much as “by your leave” it’s all guts on the street, blood in the bath and naked writhing bodies on a cellar floor. At times, this can seem a little bit excessive. When a more suggestive approach might have been more effective, Hillcoat chooses to show us the horror of the event as violently and starkly as possible without showing victims actually being eaten. You shouldn’t think of this as a violent film, however. These moments only serve as occasional breaks from a more consistent dreariness.

As a whole, The Road maintains a slow and quiet pace, giving it a more existential feel. Much of the film consists of sets of gorgeously dismal establishing shots, showing the father and son characters as small and insignificant specs slowly trudging along wrecked and empty highways, or through seemingly endless dead forests. Hillcoat leads us down a hopeless path rather than a gruesome one. Performances are solid throughout, including an abrupt but stunning cameo from Robert Duvall as a partially blinded hermit. I should mention also that the make-up work seen on Duvall and on all the film’s performers is incredibly impressive. Duvall literally looks like the walking dead, physically and figuratively, and the homeless vibe imposed on Mortensen is nothing if effective and appropriate. Mortensen is convincingly stoic and broken (as you might expect him to be), and is well supported by Kodi Smit-McPhee as his son. At times overstated, but never less than evocative, The Road is a successfully grim critique of the fearful and isolated nature of a desperate man in a world where brief moments of charity and community are all that remain when the human spirit fails to endure. It is well worth your time.

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