Film review: The Road

Director: John Hillcoat
With: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Charlize Theron Released: 8 January

The end of the world might not sound like an uplifting prospect, but most Hollywood films on the subject treat it as a cause for celebration: no matter how many cities are flattened and populations burnt to a crisp, apocalyptic disaster movies tend to leaven the mass destruction with stirring displays of wisecracking heroics and an invariably successful plan to usher in a bright new dawn for the good-looking survivors.

Last November's 2012 is a classic example, whereas this month's The Road is the exception that proves the rule. Adapted from Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer-winning novel, it's a sombre drama that makes it clear from the opening minutes that there isn't going to be a happy ending. The only question is how unhappy it's going to be.

The film is set several years after the death of almost every living thing on Earth, although the script never specifies what led to the cataclysm. From the point of view of Viggo Mortensen and his son, Kodi Smit-McPhee, the hellish conditions are just a fact of life. When a loud rumble upsets Smit-McPhee, Mortensen shrugs: "It's OK, it's just another earthquake." We learn from flashbacks that Mortensen's wife, Charlize Theron, has already killed herself, but the film doesn't condemn her suicide as cowardly. Most of the time, it seems that she made the sensible choice. Her widower and her son push their shopping trolley of possessions through a landscape of scorched earth and blackened tree stumps, keeping an eye out for unopened tins of food and steering clear of roving cannibals.

It's rare to see a film with the scope of a Hollywood blockbuster, along with the gloomy integrity of an uncompromising indie flick, so John Hillcoat, the director, deserves credit for creating such a nightmarish world without ever dumbing it down or brightening it up. And you have to hand it to Mortensen for leaving his vanity in the dressing room. It's not just that he looks as if ne needs several hot meals and a few hot baths: what's more daring is that his character is vindictive in a way that Tom Cruise would never allow himself to be.

The Road can also be profound and poetic, in a depressing kind of way. "Do you ever wish you would die," asks Mortensen, when he meets an old stranger. "No," comes the reply. "It's foolish to wish for luxuries in times like these."

Nicholas Barber