Movie Review: The Road

What does it mean to be a father? In the harrowing adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Road, in theaters now, everything is stripped away, except what really matters. Turns out, the only thing that really matters to a father is his son and raising him on the right road.

The novel is set in an America that is several years past the apocalypse. Almost everything has burned. Ash covers the earth and chokes the sky. Trees, bushes and crops have died from lack of sunlight, taking with them animal life. A few humans survive, living off the canned excesses of former civilized life. Others hunt and eat people.

A man and his son may be the last "God bespoke" people alive on Earth. Viggo Mortensen (Lord of the Rings) plays the father and Kodi Smit-McPhee is his precious son. Knowing they will not survive the cold, deprivation, and cannibals of another winter, the two set out on what once was an interstate, pushing their shopping cart of supplies south.

It's not exactly "Pollyanna."

They must find enough food to sustain their malnourished bodies. They must hide from the evil men who would kill them for food. But there are greater dangers. They must not lose themselves in despair and they must not let go of "the fire" inside, the ineffable quality of doing right and rejecting wrong that separates them from the cannibals.

As the father travels, he wavers between nurturing his son, flaming the fire of goodness in him, and teaching him ruthless survival. The father knows he is dying and his son must one day go on without him.

Shot in greys and blues, the movie aptly portrays a dying world. Mortensen plays his character with tenderness, unbelievable strength, and an edge of desperation.

Some critics have taken issue with the film for being paternalistic, even misogynist, with the father as hero and the mother as a weakling who gave into her despair. They're absolutely right, but it doesn't matter.

Not every story is about everything. This story is not about mothers. This story is, at its core, about fatherhood. Let's call it extreme fatherhood.

The father is willing to die for his son. Even more, he is willing to kill those that threaten the child, to put weary foot in front of weary foot for exhausted miles, to constantly check, worry, and monitor his son. He does it because, yes, he loves the boy, but also because the boy may be the only child left in the world raised in the knowledge of good and evil. He teaches his son to be humane, but also to survive, and the tension between the two almost overwhelms him.

In the end, he teaches his son to have faith in something bigger than himself when he no longer can be there.

This is why this film connects so emotionally with fathers. Take away the harrowing setting, and it is the crux of fatherhood. Teach a boy to be strong and wary of evil men without being brutal. Teach him to give when he has desperate needs himself. Teach him mercy in a harsh world. Teach a boy tenderness, but not weakness. And then send him out into a future you will not see, trusting that the good will find him and he will embrace the good.

Cormac McCarthy's world is a dark one, but the child is a flickering ray of light. It is a harrowing prospect to raise a child, on the road or off it.

[The Road is rated R for violence, disturbing images, and language. Scenes of cannibalism are depicted and/or implied. A man is shot in the head. It is not a film for children. However, the violence is part of the context of the evil nature of the world and the father's determination to protect his son and as such makes the movie the amazing artifact it is.]

by REBECCA CUSEY, who is a member of the Television Critics Association and does celebrity interviews, reviews, trend pieces, and event coverage. Her work has appeared in USA Today, Comcast.net, World Magazine, National Review Online, Relevant Magazine, Beliefnet.com, Crosswalk.com, and many other outlets.