Release Date:  November 25, 2009
Rating:  R (for some violence, disturbing images and language)
Genre:  Drama, Adaptation
Run Time:  119 min.
Director:  John Hillcoat
Actors:  Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce, Michael K. Williams

Questioned in a recent Wall Street Journal interview about his views on God, Cormac McCarthy, author of The Road, which has been adapted into a high-profile, Oscar-contending film, said, "I have a great sympathy for the spiritual view of life, and I think that it's meaningful. But am I a spiritual person? I would like to be. Not that I am thinking about some afterlife that I want to go to, but just in terms of being a better person. … It is more important to be good than it is to be smart. That is all I can offer you."

McCarthy's answer is not surprising. Echoes of it can be heard in Sheriff Ed Tom Bell's comments, late in the adaptation of McCarthy's No Country for Old Men, when Bell says, "I always figured when I got older, God would kinda come into my life somehow. And he didn't. I don't blame him. If I was him, I'd have the same opinion of me as he does."

The movie version of McCarthy's The Road, a story of a father and son trying to survive after an apocalyptic event, paints a picture of humanity that shouldn't be surprising to those who embrace biblical teachings: Depravity is everywhere, but in the midst of it, a young boy is able to distinguish right from wrong and to see the good amidst outwardly bleak circumstances. Although God is discussed, he is never embraced, yet The Road shows the importance of the power of hope to overcome bitterness and cynicism.

Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee star as "Man" and "Boy"—a father and son on a journey. In voiceover, we hear the Man describe a past cataclysmic event that involved a "bright light" that stopped clocks. Ever since, each day is grayer than the one before. Armed with a map, the father and son are now journeying to a distant shoreline, trying to avoid cannibals, rapists and armed gangs who search for food and fuel.

The goal is less important to the Man than the daily task of watching over his son. "The child is my warrant," he says, "and if he is not the word of God, then God never spoke." With threats all around, the father carries a gun loaded with two bullets—one for himself and one for his son, whom he plans to shoot to spare him from any grisly fate that may befall the duo. "I'll kill anyone that touches you," he tells the boy, "because that's my job." However, the father wonders if, when the time comes, he will be able to bring himself to kill his only son.