The Road
Director: John Hillcoat Year: 2009 The Road is the type of film I believe I’ll only see once. While I’m attracted to and have studied many films that have to do with great physical and mental pain – 127 Hours, Castaway and Silence of the Lambs come to mind – there are others, like The Road, that simply feel like too much. That’s not a criticism of the film. I appreciate the Director John Hillcoat’s craft and bravery to tell this story this way. It is a post-apocalyptic world with few clues about how it got that way. The Man (Viggo Mortensen’s character is never given a name) and the Woman (Charlize Theron) have a brief, picturesque life as husband and wife anticipating the birth of their first (and as it will be, only) child interrupted by what sounds like the destruction of the forest surrounding them. The forest, the fire and the darkness are just the beginning however. We are propelled some ten years later to find the Man now with a young Boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee)...