If you're anything like me, you have a "To Read" list of books to which you're constantly adding recommended or well-reviewed titles. Or perhaps, like me, you actually buy the books on your list and then they sit in a growing pile under your nightstand, collecting dust, until a magical day that you keep telling yourself surely isn't too far off in the future when you're suddenly going to have a ton of free time to leisurely read twenty-five novels in your slippers while sipping tea.
I just added another book to my list… one that I'm frustrated and embarrassed I haven't been able to sit down with to date. It's The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and the reason I'm catapulting this one to the top of my queue is because the film adaptation is coming out on October 16th. Its newly released trailer convinced me that I should check out the novel beforehand, if for no other reason than to perhaps be a little less scared when the presumably terrifying events of a father and son's post-Apocalyptic, cross-country walk unfold on the big screen.
Two of McCarthy's other beloved works have been made into movies: All the Pretty Horses and No Country for Old Men. The first, directed by Billy Bob Thornton and starring Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz, was critically panned. The second was handled expertly by the Coen brothers, and went on to win a slew of awards, including four Oscars®. The Road received the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 2006, so you can bet that many people will be bracing themselves for disappointment with the adaptation, But from the little we could see in the trailer, it looks like Australian director John Hillcoat may have a hit on his hands thanks to skillful performances by Viggo Mortensen and the young Kodi Smit-McPhee.
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Posted on May 15, 2009 at 2:35 pm
My wife and I listened to the audiobook of The Road during a long road trip last year. It was touching, beautiful, haunting, and terrifying all at the same time. We’ve been looking forward to the film ever since we heard about it.
The new trailer looks both promising and worrying. The book was deliberately slow-paced, giving it the bleak tone that the trailer seems to capture visually. But it seems as though a lot of action, ‘splosions, and Charlize Theron have been added for blockbuster appeal. Here’s to hoping the spirit of the novel remains intact.
Posted on May 15, 2009 at 2:41 pm
JT – From what I’ve seen trolling around on some message boards today, other readers of ‘The Road’ share your worries. I don’t want to read too many other reactions just because I don’t want to spoil the novel for myself (just ordered it from Amazon), but I have definitely seen your sentiments echoed already. There’s a fine line between pleasing fans of the original novel and adding something new (but still tonally appropriate) for an adaptation.
- Erika
Posted on May 15, 2009 at 3:42 pm
You’ll love The Road, Erika — it’s the feel-good book of the post-Apocalypse!
As for the film, as I’ve said before, you have to take this trailer with a big grain of salt. Most of the book focuses on the Father and Son just walking and camping. But of course, the studio marketing department has to make it look like an action story (not to mention a love story — those who’ve read the book know how manipulated those scenes are). There are certainly deadly, riveting moments of fear and danger in the book, but as in most of McCarthy’s novels, they’re just there to punctuate long stretches of quiet, stoic existentialism.
(I’ve heard the “disaster” news report scenes at the start of the trailer are NOT in the film — which is good — much of the tone of dread and despair in the book comes from the mystery of the situation: you never learn what happened, leaving everything feeling even more tenuous and uneasy.)
Like most, I’m excited by having Hillcoat at the helm — The Proposition seems like a perfect match for The Road. And like most, I’m nervous to see what changes the studio forced on him in order to sell what is — no doubt about it — one, big, long downer of a story.
Posted on June 2, 2009 at 3:44 pm
I’m happy to report that I was able to finish The Road this weekend. So I just watched the trailer above again to see if my opinion changed.
I’m REALLY hoping that Locke is right when he stated above that the news report scenes are not in the final film. Because that — and the fact that the trailer started out with “ten years from now” — definitely would take away from the freakiness of NOT knowing exactly when this awful event took place or what precisely it was.
Now understanding how the book was a whole lot of non-action, I’m steeling myself for the reality that the adaptation is going to have to up the ante in that regard. I love Viggo and all, but no one’s going to want to see him just walk around with a kid for two hours. I believe it’s still possible to add a little more excitement without destroying what was special about the story, however.
And I agree with JT that everything certainly looks like what I’d pictured in my head… so that’s a good sign…
- Erika