Hillcoat takes ‘The Road’ less traveled

“The Road”

Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, Kodi Smit-McPhee

Director: John… “The Road”

Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, Kodi Smit-McPhee

Director: John Hillcoat

Studio: Dimension Films

Grade: A

When it comes to filmic depictions of a post-apocalyptic U.S. wasteland, audiences usually either love them or hate them.

That’s why it’s so refreshing to see a movie like “The Road” arrive on the scene. It combines the polarizing fantastical elements — or not so fantastical — of a dystopian apocalypse, but the film’s stunning art direction, subdued, yet effective script and spot-on performances ensure that it’s impossible to walk away from the theater emotionally unaffected.

The movie opens with Man (Viggo Mortensen) and Boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee), his son, as they begin another dreary day traveling on an unnamed road. The pair are striving to reach the coast, which Man believes — or blindly hopes — will offer some sort of salvation from the dire circumstances they face.

Their relationship is almost immediately established as the emotional anchor of the film, and it is more than substantial enough to carry what little plot exists.

“If he is not the word of God, then God never spoke,” Man says in a voice-over.

Adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s highly revered 2006 novel of the same name, the film stays mostly true to the author’s frame and tone, with one notable exception.

Charlize Theron, who plays Man’s wife in a handful of flashback scenes, is given a backstory that barely exists in the novel.

Still, the scene in which she resigns from trying to survive with her husband and son makes viewers wish McCarthy had included it.

Mortensen and Smit-McPhee are both perfectly cast as the father and son. The latter perfectly balances naiveté and forced precociousness, while the former delivers an Oscar-worthy performance through his facial expressions alone.

Hillcoat obviously has an eye for the bleak and morbid, as “The Road” was filmed partially in areas around Pittsburgh.

Watching the film on mute would provide a comparable experience to watching it with sound, as the visuals convey more emotions than most other films do with a soundtrack.

“The Road” is by no means an uplifting movie — the ending leans much more heavily to the bitter than the sweet — but the themes of hope and the love between a father and son are unlike anything presented in theaters this year.

This “Road” is long and dark, and in the end, the journey is the destination — and how rewarding it is to travel it.