The Road

The sun is covered in ashes. Nothing moves on the gray earth - except for a father (Viggo Mortensen) and his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who wander through a destroyed America without knowing what awaits them at their destination, the coast. Fear and despair dominate their daily lives as they search for refuge, water and food. In every wrecked car and abandoned house, other survivors could be lurking, seeking their last belongings or even their lives. The departed mother (Charlize Theron) has long since given up hope and the courage to live. In his novel "The Road", bestselling US author Cormac McCarthy describes life after the apocalypse in gloomy images. He created a world of desolation and cannibalistic violence in which a father and his son are left with only their unconditional love and the will not to give up their humanity. This gripping, Pulitzer Prize-winning story has been packaged by director John Hillcoat into an atmospheric, highly suspenseful end-time thriller that is less concerned with spectacle than with being a true-to-life, oppressive character study. Like McCarthy, Hillcoat's film also meditates on the concepts of civilization and humanity. What remains of man when he is thrown back on his naked existence? The monochrome landscapes, for which Hillcoat sought out locations of real, disastrous natural events, are contrasted by sharply contoured, colorful images of memories. It is the loss of humanity that interests Hillcoat - as it did McCarthy - in these obliterated habitats. The beating heart in this world desaturated of all life is the touching father-son story. „One of the most chillingly effective visions of the world’s end ever put on screen—and a heart-rending study of parenthood, to boot.“ (Dan Jolin, in: 'Empire')