The Road

Released in select theatres across North America The Road is a movie based on Cormac McCarthy's book of the same title. The two main characters "man" and "boy" navigate a barren post-apocalyptic landscape moving towards their vague goal, "the South." As far as the viewer can tell the world has been hit by some sort of nuclear winter or meteor strike that has wiped out all life on Earth except for man. The pair, man and boy, struggle against nature (or lack there of), hordes of cannibalistic travelers, their own feelings of melancholy and the fate of their world, all the while struggling to "carry the flame." Among the action and drama, the story says some interesting and important things about our future in the event of an apocalyptic disaster.

1. Men and boys will dominate the post-apocalyptic demographic. Aside from a few women living in cannibalistic groups the women either stayed off the roads or were not present in the post-apocalyptic world.

2. There's a difference between living and surviving. The wife and mother in the story struggled with the idea of simply surviving. In today's society it doesn't seem important but there are people everywhere who simply survive with no prospect of truly living and definitely no prospect of thriving. Though, for everyone in this post-apocalyptic world the prospect of even living is almost entirely out of reach.

3. Ideas of good vs. evil will be deciding factors in survival. When all hope seems lost man and boy remember they are "carrying the flame" and that they are the "good guys" making their struggle to survive seem more bearable and important.

4. Man will turn against one another, but gifts and offerings will remain ways of keeping peace (food & clothing, no matter how small or insignificant). In the movie "man" is often distrustful of strangers and unwilling to extend a helping hand. The boy often insists on giving gifts though, which are returned by friendship and company.

5. Memories of the past will be both important to keep and important to forget. Man struggles to keep memories of his wife at bay but seeks solace in reading old-time story books to his son. These books while rejected as useless to survival are treasures important to keeping the illusion of living afloat.

6. Family and companionship are the most important thing to survival. With naught but crumbs of food left over in abandoned restaurants, the clothes on their backs and the quest of "carrying the torch," the pair would be missing the key ingredient to their survival. The most important point made in the story is the point of the unquestioned love between a man and his son.

You probably think I'm missing the point, that with the strong use of symbolism and metaphor, my deconstruction of the story's prophetic value is meaningless. Despite this, the movie gives a realistic view (as far as any of us can divine) of a post-apocalyptic world. Whether or not the author's intent was to write the story of a man's love for his son or a tale of prophetic and apocalyptic value it is important to see that these above factors are key to survival in a modern setting and will certainly be key in a post-apocalyptic world. The story is not only symbolic of a human struggle for happiness and family, it provides insight on a human level of what our world would be like in the event of a world-ending disaster. The Road shocks, it depresses, but most importantly it awes and inspires. Its a story of human ingenuity and the perseverance of love against all odds in an increasingly gray and dieing world.