A good movie

More than 30 years ago, my best buddies were all obsessed with Stephen King’s novels and they would read all of them one after the other. Back then, I was pretty snobbish and I just didn’t care for this hype. However, I have to admit that there was one of these books that really me blew away and it was ‘The Long Walk’. I was hoping that Frank Darabont would direct this adaptation since he owned the rights at some point which would have been really awesome but, unfortunately, the guy waited for too long and the rights relapsed. Eventually, after all these years, Francis Lawrence was the one to direct this adaptation which was decidedly less exciting than an adaptation by Darabont but I still wanted to check it out though. Well, I don’t know why exactly but there is something so fascinating about this story and, once again, 30 years later, I was completely hooked. Indeed, as far as I’m concerned, it is one of the most fascinating stories ever written by Stephen King and, even though Lawrence didn’t do anything fancy with it, his directing was lean and therefore really efficient. For me, this movie is all about the characters, the depth they get, and the bond they create during this completely insane and actually meaningless game. I think it also resonates with the current situation in the US where Trump keeps taking such radical messed-up decisions so they keep getting closer to such dystopian nightmares. And, to be honest, the situation in Europe is actually hardly much better. Coming back on the movie itself, the cast was really solid as well, especially Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson who, within minutes, managed to convey such a connection which only got deeper by the minute. Their connection was even more heartbreaking because, even in the best case scenario, one will have to watch the other die in front of him. Eventually, the only thing that didn’t really work for me was the lack of spectators. Sure, they argued that the Major didn’t want them but, since it was such a major event followed by the whole nation, in my opinion, it didn’t make sense that not more people would try to have a peak, even if it wasn’t allowed. Anyway, to conclude, it’s such a fascinating story, this adaptation was solid and I think it’s definitely worth a look.

7/10