Comments on: TIFF09 Review: The Road

By: rot

rot — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:28:43 +0000

it wouldn’t be the first great film to be forgotten. Outside of R3 I don’t think many people talk of Little Children, or Blindness. I can’t wait to revisit The Road.

By: kurt

kurt — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:24:36 +0000

And as has been said before, Haneke’s TIME OF THE WOLF is perhaps the definitive version of THE ROAD, even if unintentionally.

By: Andrew James

Andrew James — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:14:49 +0000

I think I mentioned this somewhere else on R3, but I think this is a movie that will largely be forgotten after a few years. The other, more interesting, “on the road with a kid” film is Hugo Weaving in Last Ride. It will probably be forgotten (or never really discovered in the first place) over time too. But it has a lot more to say and the character interaction is much more impressive and heartfelt.

By: Jonathan B.

Jonathan B. — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:07:04 +0000

I’m sick with eagerness to see this. I didn’t read through it all, since I try to go into movies I look forward to as fresh as possible, but I did skim this and that final sentence (“Most satisfying of all is that the film never cheats its audience, never gives in to any kind of easy resolve to its situations, but continues McCarthy’s sadistic trials and tribulations as they pan out throughout the movie”) is very comforting. Must see this ASAP.

By: Mike Rot

Mike Rot — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:13:50 +0000

I think the book gets at the devastation more indirectly through the style to make you feel this slow pressure coming down on the characters, whereas in the film, you have so much information onscreen at every moment that you immediately get to experience an emotional moment through that. The book was more calculated than the film could ever be.

disagree about intensity though, Hillcoat wins hands down.

By: Andrew James

Andrew James — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 07:09:43 +0000

Spot on review Rot. Couldn’t have said it better myself. I was amazed that what was onscreen was pretty damn close to what was in my head during my reading of the novel. Two things struck me however…

1 – I felt the heartbreak and devastation much more with Hillcoat’s vision for some reason. I felt the emotion in the characters better on screen than the novelization. BUT…

2 – The more intense sequences (and granted there aren’t a lot in the story) seemed much more intense to me in the book. Particularly the “people under the stairs” bit.

So it’s weird that the faithfulness to the book both makes the film, but also hinders it VERY SLIGHTLY. All in all really really liked the movie. Didn’t love it, but REALLY liked it.

What a fantastic fest day for me!

By: Row Three TIFF Reviews: The Road « TIFFReviews.com

Row Three TIFF Reviews: The Road « TIFFReviews.com — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 05:08:26 +0000

[...] Contributed by: Mike Rot (Row Three)4/5 Allow me to answer the question before it is asked: John Hillcoat’s The Road is as good an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel as we were ever going to get. Now before diving into the pleasurable minutiae of the film itself, this last sentence needs some unpacking. I can really only speak of Hillcoat’s The Road as an adaptation, the unprovoked visceral experience that some may encounter in the film without prior knowledge of the story is left for some other reviewer to describe…. McCarthy’s sadistic trials and tribulations as they pan out throughout the movie. Source: Row Three [...]