The Road

It's hard to review a film like The Road simply because it is so bleak I would struggle to recommend it. I certainly won't be rushing out to see it again.

That said, it is a quality piece of film making and a story that while bleak, cold and a shade depressing is very interesting.

Set in no specific time and few characters are actually given names so as not to date it I guess, the film follows a Father (Viggo Mortenson) and a Boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) as they try to survive as the world dies around them.

We learn in flashbacks that the boy's mother (Charlize Theron) saw no point in raising a child in a post apocalyptic time and eventually gave up, walking out on her family and to her death.

The father and son travel south looking for the coast. You get the sense that the Father is retracing his history and the good times by visiting places special to him along the way. Almost like he's slowly letting his life flash before his eyes.

He's also preparing his son for a time when he won't be around. Yep, this is a fun movie.

Apparently it is very faithful to the book (I haven't read it). It presents a world that is dark, grey, where people resort to any means to survive and the only hope is the hope you carry yourself (they refer to it as the fire).

A few things aren't made clear, particularly how the world reached this point. But in the end you don't need to know how and why, you've got to take the journey for yourself.

The leads are very strong in their roles and they are tough roles because there's not a huge amount of dialogue at times. I won't go into what happens, if you're curious it is worth a look because there is something to be taken from The Road.

But it's such tough going at times it's not the type of film you'd see more than one.

A 7.5 out of 10.