The Thousands

What foolio made that absurd, misleading trailer? The Road is no action-packed post-apocalyptic thriller. Readers of Cormac McCarthy’s novel will be familiar with its episodic, elegiac and even allegorical tone, which John Hillcoat (The Proposition) has beautifully captured. Indeed, I feel strongly that people who’ve read The Road will have a very different (but no less powerful) cinematic experience to those who haven’t.

It’s bleak all right, but what surprised me – and might also surprise those new to the story – was its pervasive sense of hope, tenderness and even beauty. In a dying world devastated by an unspecified catastrophe, the remaining humans survive by theft, brutality and cannibalism. But love and human decency sustain a father (Viggo Mortensen) and his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee, soon to star in the American remake of Let The Right One In) defying their wife and mother’s (Charlize Theron) flinty cynicism.

Smit-McPhee, especially, is wonderful: innocent without that icky child-star cutesiness. The supporting cast (whose roles amount to cameos) add depth to the moral maze. Those new to the story may find the tension nigh-unbearable and some explicit scenes shocking, but I found The Road deeply affecting. Stay for the bittersweet closing credits.