McCarthy's THE ROAD Presents A Bleak Future With Little Hope

THE ROAD, starring Viggo Mortenson and Robert Duvall, began as a 2006 novel by the author of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, Cormac McCarthy. The story follows the journey of a father and son across a post-apocalyptic America after an unexplained event wipes out all of civilization and, seemingly, nearly all life on earth. Mortenson portrays the desperate father trying to get himself and his son to the ocean after his wife, overcome by despair and grief, selfishly abandons them both and commits suicide. The landscape is utterly desolate and void of any form of order or structure as they make their way through destroyed cities and countrysides. To add to their struggles for food and water in a world where all resources and technology have been completely depleted they also have to deal with groups of cannibalistic nomads. This is a tragic tale to say the least and the father/son relationship is truly heart-breaking in its sincerity and love in the midst of such extreme hardships. Nevertheless, the film is an excellent adaptation of the book and a small nugget of hope is tossed into the viewer's lap in the end. I was still frustrated by the fact that there really is no explanation whatsoever in the book or the movie as to how civilization was destroyed so thoroughly.