This movie was supposed to come out last year, but got pushed to this fall instead. Talk about dystopian…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQS0fRIuFeA
Interested?
Did you read the book?
I’m interested. I read the book. From the trailer, it looks like the movie will have at least one major change from the book. The wife has a bigger presence – she only had a few paragraphs in the book and was dead when the story started.
It’ll be nice to have an apocalypse story without aliens or zombies.
Not read the book, but I’ve read other Cormac McCarthy and am interested. Stylistically, seems to have some similarities to Children of Men, although I imagine the book pre-dates that film.
Bit of trivia: at 00:36 in the trailer, there’s a shot of an abandoned highway leading to a tunnel. I’m fairly certain that’s one of the tunnels that was bypassed when part of the Pennsylvania Turnpike near Breezewood was rebuilt in the '70s. The spot is accessible from Route 30 just east of town. Some years back I stopped where the highway passes under the abandoned Turnpike, climbed the embankment and ended up standing almost where the camera was placed for the shot. No abandoned cars there, of course. I remember at the time thinking what a great location it would make for a post-apocalyptic film. Looks like someone else did too.
Actually, Children of Men (the movie) came out just a few days before The Road (the book).
And that was based on the P.D. James novel from 1992.
It looks competent, but so much of my enjoyment of the book was the prose style and the structure.
The book was about the bond between a father and a son, and the love that survives while the whole world goes to shit, and the hope that love inspires. It was a beautifully written novel about pure, undistilled emotion; the setting was just there to emphasize that emotion.
It WAS NOT about roving gangs of baddies (what? No Road Warrior-esque ass-less chaps?), or post-apocalyptic adventures, or hiding from cannibalistic crazies with machine guns. That’s all just window dressing.
I don’t think the soul of this book is something that can be captured on film. When I read the book —after I wiped my tears and snuck into my son’s room to watch him while he slept— I recall thinking, “There’s a good reason The Road sold zillions of copies…how long before some bunch of money-hungry idiots try to make it into a movie?”
I’m looking forward to it. The soul may (and probably will) be lacking, but that’s what the book is for, and I’m a visual person so I enjoy seeing other people’s visions.
I am not happy- I’m sure Harvey has fucked it up royally.
I knew they couldn’t film it…
I gave up on the book. I grew weary of the Downer Oprah-Book Setting (and I’m a big Sci-Fi fan, and love a lot of Post-Apoc books).
So after a few chapters I flipped it open to the middle, and… Absolutely Nothing Had Happened. “Oh, look, still slogging through The Post-Interestingness Landscape.” And then, I put it down.
And went and played outside in the interestingness.
Man if that’s an Oprah-book setting, I gotta read more Oprah-books.
It’s the only real post-apocalyptic novel I think I’ve ever read: most post-apocalypses involve rebuilding in the ashes, and if you can rebuild, that’s not much of an apocalypse, is it? I read the whole thing in one night, and amazingly didn’t have nightmares. It’s an amazing book.
Reserving judgment on the movie.
You too? 
It took me a while to get through the first thirty pages or so, which would’ve been no problem had my son not been born yet. I can’t imagine a father being able to read that book without breaking down a few times.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, at the IMDB forum for the movie, there are reviews from a handful of people who’ve seen screenings of various cuts of the movie. The ones written by readers of the book were very positive and seemed confident that the few problems with the movie would be ironed out in the editing room since they were watching early versions of the film.
By the way According to test screening viewers, Charlize Theron’s role is a very small one and her screen time is very brief. Because she’s such a major actress, people have assumed that the “wife” character was expanded to figure prominently in the movie, but it wasn’t.
I was very impressed by John Hillcoat’s The Proposition, so I’m hopeful that he was able to do the book justice.
THIS FALL
RUN
SACRIFICE
KILL
I don’t think this trailer really captures the feeling of the book. That doesn’t mean the film won’t, but it makes me a bit cautious. I thought one of the book’s strong points was, as been mentioned, that the setting is of less importance than the bond that is shared between father and son. If I recall correctly, it’s never even briefly explained what happened to cause the apocalypse, just hints of atomic winter.
Another thing that disappointed me about the trailer- IIRC, the book never told us what happened. It looks like the film creates a disaster of some sort to explain the mostly-empty world. I preferred not being told why and just knowing that it is.
The trailer was certainly more explodey than the book. And not in a good way.
People who have previewed the film unanimously claim that the trailer’s first few seconds of stock footage of every possible disaster/explosion is NOT in the movie itself and the catastrophe is just as unexplained in the film as in the book. Relax, everybody.
My thoughts exactly. The great thing about the book is that the dread and fear comes from the unknown. No explanation of what happened, no idea of where to go, no idea of who to trust. They have a destination but have no idea of what may even be there. Isolated in survival mode for years on end. No safe place to call home yet no idea of where to go. Great book.