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When No Country For Old Men swept up a big stack of Oscars two years ago it was inevitable that we would be getting a cinematic adaptation of The Road. After all if Cormac McCarthy’s vaguely philosophical thriller could bring home Academy Awards for the Coen Brothers, then surely the author’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel would strike Oscar gold as well. Now the author’s post-apocalyptic epic has finally hit screens and the results are undeniably impressive. The Road is far too depressing and overbearing to ever equal the commercial success or awards glory of No Country For Old Men, but that was inevitable. The Road just isn’t as entertaining or as easily translatable to the screen as No Country. The film is a tough watch, but a rewarding one. You’ll never find yourself watching this movie on a Sunday afternoon for fun, but there’s no denying that it is one of the strongest film of the year (even if it doesn’t quite capture the brilliance of the original book).

The ever-impressive Viggo Mortensen stars as an unnamed character billed only as “Man.” Years after an unknown cause brought about an end of the world, Mortensen walks the desolate landscape of what’s left of the United States with his son hoping to find some semblance of society. Mortensen fruitlessly keeps his son marching forwards in the hopes that they’ll eventually find a place to call home. Sadly, that’s just not the case. All that’s left of the world are burned out buildings and shacks occupied either by nervous survivors terrified of everyone who enters their world or psychotic cannibals feasting on the few remaining humans to survive. It’s a fascinating world created by Cormac McCarthy that allows him to study humanity and it’s most desolate and desperate. We never know what caused the end of the world and that’s not the point. This isn’t a movie about the apocalypse or any sort of attempt to rebuild society. Instead, it’s a study of what human beings are capable of in the most desperate times and the difficulty we often face in connecting with one and other.

Viggo Mortensen appears in practically every second of the movie and gives a truly remarkable performance. He is given few lines of dialogue to actually express how he feels and a beard to cover his face, but is able to communicate all of his fear, desperation, and hatred through his eyes. This isn’t the best performance that Mortensen has managed to date (that would still be his fantastic work in Eastern Promises), but it is still an excellent piece of acting. Ever since his star-making role in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, Mortensen has been offered a series of challenging roles and at this point he has to be considered one of if not the finest actor of his generation. Kodi Smit-McPhee co-stars as his son and gives a remarkably sad and tortured performance for such a young actor. Other quality actors like Robert Duvall, Guy Pierce, and Charlize Theron pop up in supporting roles and all do good work, but all of them are only given a few fleeting minutes of screen time. The Road is Viggo Mortensen’s movie and he knocks it out of the park.

The film was directed by Australian auteur John Hillcoat, who is best known for his gritty Western The Proposition. Though not a big name, Hillcoat was ideally suited for this particular project. He has a dark sense of pessimism and fatalism that is crucial to McCarthy story and also isn’t afraid of telling a story at a slow pace (which is also a good thing since the film is primarily about two people walking down an empty road with no end in sight). Hillcoat shoots the film in a palate of dark grays and a series of long lingering takes that really adds to the sense of dread and hopelessness. This film was always going to be slow and depressing, so thank god a filmmaker was found who could embrace that side of the project. If Judd Apatow had taken on this story, it would have been a disaster.

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