THE ROAD

Directed by John Hillcoat. Starring Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron and Robert Duvall.

My rating: 9 (out of 10)

Being the sort of parent who runs unlikely disaster scenarios featuring her children in an endless loop in her head, I almost turned off The Road. I hadn't read Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer-prize winning novel, and I was unprepared for the post-apocalyptic misery it portrayed.

The Man (Viggo Mortensen) and the Boy (newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee) wander a breathtakingly barren world in search of food, when all animal life, vegetation and even those resilient insects have long gone. Unsurprisingly, many of the desperate humans who remain have turned to cannibalism to survive. Characters played by Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce and Michael K. Williams are some of the strangers the boy and his father meet on their endless march south.

Did I say misery? The film is also a thing of beauty. McCarthy's lyrical prose shines in the sporadic voiceover narration and in the Woman's hopeless musings (Charlize Theron, never better). While the film asks weighty questions -- Is it enough to merely survive? How long can one cling to hope? -- its core is the relationship between father and son. It's not a warm and fuzzy pairing (such a thing doesn't exist in survival mode) but it is tender nonetheless.

The DVD offers director commentary, deleted/extended scenes, and one long making-of feature which examines the process and the story, and contains interviews with all the players.