Raw Despair

[[[ This Review Contains Spoilers ]]]

This film redefines the post apocalyptic theme and genre. I will always compare any other dark future movie with this one. I hope I will find movies as good or better, but I doubt I'll find any harder than this. Just think about it: how many movies have you watched were a father explains his kid how to kill himself when he feels his time has come and does it right in the beginning? How many movies depict cannibalism as a probable ending for the main characters (and you dont know if they will be cannibalized of cannibalists themselves) if they don't die of hunger first? How many movies have shown you such situations were you find yourself reasoning the logic in human herding while feeling repulsed by it? You will understand and hate every horrible thing that is gonna happen in the screen.

O.K. Let's go for the meat and potatoes (pun intended). What makes this such a special movie? The main reasons come from the book it's adapted from. I haven't read it (I wish I had done now) but the main elements in the setting, theme, situations and characters come directly from it.

The setting is rotten and cruel. The world as we know it has been broken down by a mysterious event that has destroyed life and civilization. The first has been almost wiped out, only some dying trees, some insects and a handful of human beings still exist. This has happened at least thirteen years ago and there's no way to turn it back. The world is going to die, humanity is going to perish and civilization was buried and forgotten a decade (or so) ago. There's no hope whatsoever and that's a big difference from other post-apocalypse movies. Civilization isn't re-borning in some mysterious place, there's no legend of a better place to live, there's no cure for the world or hint of an escape from it. The main characters are as trapped in this nightmarish and they only try to 'go south' looking for a slightly better climate, nothing more. Soon you know that probably they are just travelling south because it's better than staying put.

This is not a movie about hope, because there's none except, perhaps, in the last, bland, minutes of it. The theme isn't death either although it lingers above everything and everybody all the time, it's not about family because the Man and the Boy (as their characters are called) have a relationship that goes way further than a 'simple' father-son one and you can be sure it's not about faith. Loss isn not it either, they, everybody, has lost everything they ever had or wished for, but that's just the way things are, it's part of the setting. OK I'll stop this nonsense: this is a movie about despair and love. One and the other are joined in such a blend that you can't separate them.

To say that this is a road movie may sound stupid, let's say its a travel movie. The characters go through situations and people trying to keep themselves alive and a hint of a soul ('fire' they call it) in themselves. It gets to a point when too many things and people have passed through the screen, all horrible, all intense, but in the end they go away so fast that they become fading memories too soon. Probably you won't remember everything that happened to the man and the boy the day after watching it, but you will remember two or three elements forever. This is a problem in a lot of movies based of books: too much different events for two hours of movie.

Let's talk about the cast. Mortensen has the best character and performs very nicely, even great. The thing is that half of that greatness comes from characterization and the other half from acting. His looks are so intense that even if from time to time his acting ain't so interesting the result is always more than OK. We can thank the guys in the wardrobe and makeup departments, but also Mortensen himself who had to starve himself a little to look more like his close-to-death-from-real-starvation character. His character is full of despair and death-wish, but at the same time it's a stubborn machine of survivalism. It's the kind of character who watches the hell rising from his home window and the first thought he has is filling the bathtub with water. This are two very difficult and different elements to show in a character (will to live and despair) and Mortensen can be proud of getting it done. The Man feels like a guy who can´t surrender, but feels his end nearer and nearer every day and is hoping for it. Two big claps for that.

Kodi, the boy, does as good as you could ask him, i guess. It's really difficult for me to evaluate the work of kids in movies and I tend to translate their work into directing work. In my opinion, he does a nice job but his character feels too light, too soft. I guess this comes from the book, but he is too fair-minded for me to really believe the character. They chose him because he looked "seemed youthful, innocent and yet wise beyond his years" well... too much of the first two and not so much from the last one in my opinion, but he gives us some very powerful moments along the movie and he deserves all the credit due for that.

The rest of the cast comes from very different backgrounds. We have people from tv (K. Williams from The Wire does a good job), type-casted (Dillahunt as a dirty & dangerous redneck), lost (Duvall's character feels to out of place, but perhaps that's a problem from the script sloppy last third) or just in the wrong place and moment, but all of them do a great nice work getting the best out of their characters and scenes.

The best of the movie comes from the dead scenery, the high tension moments and the strength of the characters' relations. The filming is so gray that you will feel sick when you watch some colors. This one of the most special, sincere, and full of love father-son relationship I have seen in a movie in a long time and it all happens in the gruesomest of horrors. Mortensen gives his character the best moments when he is loving his kid. It's really unusual for the father to be shown as the kissing and nursing one in the family.

The worst of the movie is the melodrama. They wanted to cut all the dark stuff with some simpler elements so they introducedsome pretty flashbacks and out of place voice-overs. The Woman, Mortensen's character's wife and the mother of the kid, has the worst character in the whole movie. His history ain't that bad, but the way it's explained feels cheap. Her limited acting skills doesn't help, either. The saddest part is that her character didn't have so much importance in the book, they forced it in the movie so there's a woman in the cast, that's it. That character drags down the best part of the movie, the first half. Here comes the other wrong that has to be mentioned. The movie comes from better to worse. When the climax comes it feels like a forced act and the resolution, the ending, is so soft that it's better to forget. The only funny thing about it is that it shows something important: this is the kind of movie where you know it's a happy ending for sure because there's a dog and kids (and nobody has eaten them yet).

This movie isn't as perfect as it could have been, probably because of its literary origins and some directing/scripting decisions, but it's a movie that will redefine your notion of despair in a movie. That's a lot and a promise: it will.