Word: filmed
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...first half of the story. Only two things interrupt the film’s monochromatic palette: blood and fire, both of which are shot in horribly sharp relief. But Hillcoat and Aguirresarobe refuse to let their limited color range get in the way of shooting a strikingly desolate film, filled with a series of images that seem destined to become iconic. Father and son stumble down a warped concrete road, shattered telephone poles leaning ominously over them; Mortensen pushes a shopping cart through a marsh, silhouetted by guttering flames. On this “Road,” destruction...
Such a generalization, however, would be misleading. Though “The Road”—adapted from the Pulitzer-Prize winning novel by Cormac McCarthy—fits comfortably into a dark and atmospheric genre of post-disaster film that has recently included such uninspired schlock as “I Am Legend,” it is also quite unlike the films that have preceded it, including Mortensen and Hillcoat’s previous efforts. Eschewing narrative conventions, at least to the extent that big-budget Oscar bait can afford...
...moments, vignettes that slowly coalesce into a fuller picture of the characters and their experiences. Father and son run from bandits, enjoy an unopened, still-carbonated Coca-Cola, and eat canned fruit with an elderly fellow traveler, all the while theoretically moving toward the coast. The structure of the film doesn’t so much negate that motion as render it irrelevant...
...fragmentation of the film is furthered by its one major deviation from McCarthy’s book: the inclusion of a number of flashbacks. Featuring Charlize Theron as Mortensen’s wife—a character who appeared only referentially in the book—these scenes show the gradual unraveling of their family as the mysterious crisis unfolds outside shuttered windows...
...this addition is ambiguous, but any intended benefit is undermined by a horribly overplayed performance from Theron. Her tearfully dramatic interpretation of domestic strife, which might work well in another context, falls flat when juxtaposed with the quieter but far more affecting despair that permeates the rest of the film. Mortensen nearly resorts to similar overacting in the flashbacks, but he redeems himself in the main narrative with a perfect balance of subdued hopelessness and occasional sparks of faith. Rarely raising his voice above a low mumble, the father is still as vibrant a character as Mortensen has ever played...