Playlist contrib Kevin Jagernauth said to me, John Hillcoat’s latest, “doesn’t quite get a handle on the tone, but holy shit Viggo Mortensen and the kid [Kodi Smit-McPhee] are fantastic.”
We’d agree. And even though we’d give the film a much higher grade than he’d allow (we gave it an [A-] cause it was so emotionally affecting, Jagernauth said a [B] because of some of the flaws and because it “wasn’t the gut punch I was hoping for”), we’d concur that the film has tonality issues.
The flashbacks don’t quite work, the voice-over in the beginning feels compromised, and we sort of resented the ending for not maximizing the emotional impact (a few shots feel composed poorly enough to make us want to scream). And yet, we loved the harrowing, bleak and monochromatic mood of this love story between a young boy and his protective father. It’s a difficult film and it feels like a polarizing one. Fans of the Cormac McCarthy source material seem torn too (though die-hards generally love any offshoots). You’ve read enough about “The Road,” so we won’t go on here, but you can read our full review from TIFF earlier this year.
“The Road” hits theaters in some protracted release that seems to have confused audiences. First the release was limited, then wide, then it was scaled back to something-in-between. The Weinstein Company didn’t even return our emails, and seem loathe to discuss, but they told Rope of Silicon that it will open in 31 markets. If it doesn’t hit one of those markets for some reason and you’re in them, we’d love to hear from you.
