Another Father And HIs Son

After much waiting and some searching, yesterday I finally got my hands on the movie "The Road." Having read the novel and analyzed it in great detail in previous blogs, it is only fair to say that my expectations towards the film were relatively high. I had been told that it was already out on theaters and waited for the weekend to come to go watch it only to find that it was all big lie, for its not out on theaters yet, or at least not in any I know of. I was greatly disappointed but, having read a story about a kid and his father that survived a natural disaster and fought bravely in their way to survival, I couldn't give up that easily. Finally, and after much research, I found the movie and, well, lets say I wish I hadn't.

As mentioned previously in blogs, the loving relationship between father and son struck me since the beginning of the novel as the most important element on a personal level. I had imagined their conversations once and again as they appeared on the pages, running images of their situation through my mind. To me, it was a narration of a relationship, all other event being but elements to depicts new aspects of such. It was not a story about natural disaster, humanity's resilience, hope or any of that to this reader, it was about communication and companionship. But apparently, John Hillcoat and I disagree in our interpretations. I was expecting a movie depicting this relationship, one that made you think about yourself and your relationships, one with something beyond a best-seller about a natural disaster.

In his movie, Hillcoat depicts the father as a guardian in opposition of my image of him as a companion. The movie narrates much of what the book suggests, but it excludes that communication between father and son which is so present through the book. It can be no better demonstrated than by the fact that we don't see the kid speak to his father until we are about 25 minutes into the film. In the novel, it is already in the tenth page that they are having a conversation about death and Cormac McCarthy illustrates the relationship that will protagonise the entire novel:

"What would you do If I died?

If you die I would want to die too.

So you could be with me?

Yes. So I could be with you

Okay" (11).

A director has in his role the power to change a novel so much by merely excluding elements or ignoring certain pages, that it is almost as if he was telling a different story. He can make this story either more enriching to the reader or a project that falls short of the expected, and that is the problem when dealing with the visual depiction of written ideas. In the film, the relationship between the two progressively improves, for at the beginning they barely speak, and at the end they are already having long conversations with elements of the novel inscribed in them. And this is another way to narrate the relationship, but not the way the author wanted it to be done, and even in the end the movie falls short of illustrating the relationship to its full extent.

When the movie reaches minute 45, we witness the scene of the kid chasing another boy he thought he saw, and the father going after him. In the book this happens, and the father isn't exactly thrilled with the kids behavior, but not once does he loose his temper and shadow the relationship as the father in the movie did scolding him and raising his voice violently in an argument that has no place in the novel. It is here that I felt as if I was being told a different story, as if the film and the book narrated the same situation of two different kids, for as hard as I tried I couldn't conciliate the father in the novel with the father on the screen, they where just not the same person.

In the pages, when the father dies, the novel reaches one of the deepest points in depicting that relationship. It is then that we confirm that all what we'd read is real, and that the father and his son where really companions. And the kid, frustrated at his loss, reminds the father that he promised never to leave him. And the Father is truly sorry and remind him that "You have my whole heart. You always did. You're the best guy. You always were. If i'm not here you can still talk to me. You can talk to me and I'll talk to you. You'll see" (279). The father then made their communication eternal as to highlight its importance in the novel, he suggests that even if he dies their connection will remain and they will always be able to communicate their fears and hopes to one another. The father in the film, well he's not that expressive. It's definitely a sad scene, with the father lying cold on the floor and his son placing a blanket on him, but without the communication, without the words that made the pages so rich.

I can only begin to express my disappointment at the movie. Yes, I realize those are harsh words, but Hillcoat should have realized he was dealing with something beyond entertainment. And even if it was only entertainment I must say it fails to meet its objective for it has no thrill, no action, none of the things that would have made this movie at least exciting when excluding the relationship. And it is not mere resentment, for I witnessed as one of my friends stood up and went to sleep for nothing happened, and those of us who read it where hypnotized by the screen but not as a result of the film but of the critique running through our minds. And I wish I had written congratulations to Hillcoat on this blog, that the film would have given me more to praise than to miss, but I can only reiterate to myself that whoever thinks films and our modern forms of entertainment will soon replace literature should do himself a favor and live my experience.