January 11, 2010
Is it faithful to the book? Yes, and surprisingly so. Despite the misleading trailers full of stock footage of earthquakes and tsunamis, there's no extraneous attempt to explain the catastrophe that leaves the Earth incapable of supporting life and reduces the few remaining humans to savagery. It tones down some of the more unpleasant scenes - but to be fair, it would have been unwatchable if it hadn't. It rearranges a few scenes in the understandable cause of building some kind of narrative out of such a sparse, episodic book. There's a few expensive CGI shots of collapsed cities, and some flashbacks to happier times that briefly pierce the relentless misery, but it largely maintains the same close, intimate focus on its two nameless protagonists as they struggle across the blasted landscape, avoiding cannibals and gathering the last remaining canned goods. It even imports the strange religious overtones that hint vaguely at messianic redemption.
Is it well done? Absolutely. Viggo Mortensen is one of the great film actors of the age, and he invests his character with real and flawed humanity. Kodi Smit-McPhee, while suffering a little from the unnervIng earnestness that seems to afflict Hollywood child stars, plays a genuinely traumatised 'Boy' with real conviction. Director John Hillcoat maintains the facility with landscape that made his Aussie western The Proposition so striking. The sound design is particularly fine - the post-apocalyptic air is full of distant crackles and booms and pointedly lacking the insect buzzing and birdsong that we hear in The Man's brief, idyllic memories of married life. Only the score sounds a false note - Warren Ellis and Nick Cave (who also worked on The Proposition) start out with attractively eerie electronica but rapidly descend into sweeping, sentimental strings that become irksomely manipulative in the final devastating scenes.
Should you see it? Probably not. Because, sadly, there doesn't seem to be any reason to do so, much as there doesn't seem to be any reason for the film to exist beyond the simple fact that the novel from which it's been so handsomely adapted managed to achieve both popularity and critical acclaim. If you haven't read that novel, it's a much better use of your time than seeing the film as you'll also get the benefit of Cormac McCarthy's gut-punch prose. If you have, I'm not sure you'd benefit from a visual adaptation, no matter how good.
Is it well done? Absolutely. Viggo Mortensen is one of the great film actors of the age, and he invests his character with real and flawed humanity. Kodi Smit-McPhee, while suffering a little from the unnervIng earnestness that seems to afflict Hollywood child stars, plays a genuinely traumatised 'Boy' with real conviction. Director John Hillcoat maintains the facility with landscape that made his Aussie western The Proposition so striking. The sound design is particularly fine - the post-apocalyptic air is full of distant crackles and booms and pointedly lacking the insect buzzing and birdsong that we hear in The Man's brief, idyllic memories of married life. Only the score sounds a false note - Warren Ellis and Nick Cave (who also worked on The Proposition) start out with attractively eerie electronica but rapidly descend into sweeping, sentimental strings that become irksomely manipulative in the final devastating scenes.
Should you see it? Probably not. Because, sadly, there doesn't seem to be any reason to do so, much as there doesn't seem to be any reason for the film to exist beyond the simple fact that the novel from which it's been so handsomely adapted managed to achieve both popularity and critical acclaim. If you haven't read that novel, it's a much better use of your time than seeing the film as you'll also get the benefit of Cormac McCarthy's gut-punch prose. If you have, I'm not sure you'd benefit from a visual adaptation, no matter how good.