May 13, 2009 
source: esquire.com
The very lucky Tom Chiarella over at Esquire has seen Aussie director John Hillcoat‘s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Road, and has unsurprisingly showered it with praise.
Chiarella declares The Road to be “the most important movie of the year“, while also calling it a film you “will not want to see twice.”
“The Road is a story about the persistence of love between a father and a son, and in that way it’s more like a remake of The Godfather than some echo of I Am Legend,” he says.
The film stars Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit McPhee as the aforementioned father and son who attempt to evade the cannibalistic masses in a post-apocalyptic hellscape. No names are given to the characters, and no reason is ever given for the cataclysm that wipes out most of the life on Earth.
I’m a big fan of McCarthy’s work, which also includes the classic novels No Country for Old Men and Blood Meridian. NCFOM was adapted for screens in 2007 by The Coen Brothers, although if you didn’t know that, you probably should stop reading this blog and go buy it now. Blood Meridian is set to be adapted by In The Bedroom director Todd Field in 2010.
As Chiarella discusses in his article, The Road may be too bleak and impenetrable for mass audiences. This could be a problem for a studio looking to recoup the picture’s $30 million budget. Chiarella describes a frenetic and completely inappropriate trailer that has been selected by producer Harvey Weinstein (of course) we will most likely see in the coming weeks.
UPDATE: The trailer has hit the web! Let us know what you think about it in the comments section.
http://www.traileraddict.com/emd/10979
The Road was originally set for release at the end of last year, but has been delayed until October 2009. This bodes well for the film’s Oscar chances.
Oh, and did we mention that Michael K. Williams AKA Omar from The Wire has a tiny role as a thief. Best Supporting Actor nomination anyone???
Discuss: Does a slow-moving, relatively action-free, relentlessly bleak film about the apocalypse sound appealing to you? Because it totally should.
Quickflix 
No, it totally doesn’t. Sound appealing that is. I can deal with slow-moving and even action-free but the relentless bleakness is…well…relentlessly bleak and reading it was bad enough. I’d rather gouge my own eyes out with a blunt knife than see that hopelessness come to life on the big screen.
I beg to differ with the writer–how can anyone not be a fan of Cormac McCarthy’s writing? he’s the Hemmingway of our times
I loved The Road, and personally I think the love between the father and son gives the book a redemptive quality that prevents the book from being “relentlessly bleak”. I hope the film is good, but I doubt it can possibly be as great as the book itself.