The Road

So I popped a copy of The Road into my DVD player last night, and much to my surprise, I stayed awake into the wee hours to finish it. Now I should explain this a bit. I generally do all my movie watching late at night, as this is when I get the time to relax. Generally, I will start a movie around midnight, and make it about half way through before I start passing out. I then resume the movie the next night. Few and far between are the movie that keep me up for the whole film in one sitting.

The Road is about a father and son traveling through a post apocalyptic world trying to survive.
I expected the movie to be good, but HOLY CRAP. Cinematically, it was beautiful. The set designer and CGI artist really did a great job of putting together a post apocalyptic world. The interaction between the young boy and his father is at times uplifting, tear jerking, and gut wrenching. The dramatic scenes truly had me on the edge of my seat. Movie trailers say that all the time "it'll have you on the edge of your seat" but this really did.

My favorite part of the movie was the consistency of the theme. For the Save the Cat readers out there, I can't remember where it was stated, but there was a constant theme of humanity. The loss of humanity in the cannibalistic survivors, the struggle of the father to maintain his humanity via caring for a protecting the boy, and the boy himself, an innocent, who despite being born in this waste land, is a constant reminder of the world that was. As the dad (Vigo Mortensen) begins to lose his kindness, becoming hardened by the world around him, it is the boy who reminds him that they are the "good guys", preventing him from becoming blood thirsty like so many of the other survivors.

All and all, top notch flick. Definitely give it a view.