American author Cormac McCarthy's 2006 novel - which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction - divides its readership. There are those who believe it to be the first great novel of the 21st century and who will spend an inordinate amount of time at dinner parties telling you so. On the other hand, there are many who regard it as the Emperor's New Clothes, an unoriginal and jarringly-written account of survival in a post-Apocalyptic world.
As for the film: it is likely to have exactly the same effect. A man and his son (Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee) wander through a desolate futureworld. Just as in the book, we are never sure as to why the world has become such a barren place to be: a nuclear war perhaps, or a sudden, severe ecological disaster. Whatever the case, there are very few survivors, and very little food, leaving Viggo and child with some tough choices to make and harsh terrain to cross on their long walk to the coast.
Occasionally, Charlize Theron pops up in some dream or memory sequences (her character of the mother barely registers in the book): her presence has been controversial to the book diehards, but they can rest assured that it is actually dealt with quite well. As is the portrayal of the bleak not-too-distant future.
The question is whether audiences will buy this or not. After all, it's nearly two hours with limited dialogue of two characters rooting around for food and a place to sleep for the night. Not exactly feelgood stuff in the current climate. But there are enough visual set-pieces, and the odd moving moment to probably win over most doubters.
It's a vast improvement on John Hillcoat's previous directorial effort, the disastrously pretentious The Proposition, and is the kind of thing that just might give Mortensen an Academy Award nod if voters aren't feeling too glum by the end of it.
Paul Hurley
