The premise: what if the way of life you took for granted suddenly ceased to exist, and you found yourself pitted against the next person in a desperate bid for survival? John Hillcoat’s adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel, The Road, is set in such a world.
The play: a global catastrophe (we don’t know what) has occurred, killing most of world’s inhabitants. A man (Viggo Mortensen), and his young son (Kodi Smit-McPhee), are on foot trying to reach the coast (for reasons unknown).
Their grim quest takes them through scenes reminiscent of a nuclear winter, while they contend with ground shattering earthquakes, violent storms, and marauding gangs of survivors looking for food (i.e. people).
The wrap: this one shakes you around before letting go, and sometimes you walk out of the cinema grateful the world is as it was when you arrived. Of all the bleak, dystopian, futures painted for humanity, The Road takes us to another place all together.
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