The Road

Starring Viggo Mortensen (Lord of the Rings) and Kodi Smit-McPhee

If you want to see what a world without God looks like, see “The Road.” It’s a rather dark and depressing film, but I recommend it. It’s the story about a father and his 10 year old son who have survived a mysterious, apocalyptic cataclysm which has destroyed nearly all life on the planet. The movie follows their journey from their home in the mountains to the coast, where they hope things will be better. Food is virtually non-existent. As a result, some people have turned to cannibalism to survive. Much of the dramatic tension in the movie involves the father and son eluding gangs who prey on other humans. Clinging to each other in love, they are able to survive.

Throughout the film dark, heavy clouds hang in the sky, adding to the hopelessness of the situation. The earth is dying. Nobody can be trusted. Many people, including his wife, have committed suicide. But father and son don’t give up. The father does everything he can to stay alive, to protect his son and teach him how to survive in merciless and dangerous world. One of the first rules is not to trust anyone. But the boy is still young. He has not completely lost his innocence, even though he is very much aware of the dangers. In one scene the pair come to an abandoned farmhouse. Upstairs, they discover the gruesome remains of the owner in his bed. As the father takes the blanket from the corpse he notices the shock on the boy’s face. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before,” he says matter-of-factly.

Most importantly though the boy has not lost his faith in humanity. He’s cautious, but he still has the capacity to trust and to see the good in others. In another scene, the boy and his father meet an old man (played by Robert Duvall) stumbling along the road. At the boy’s insistence they give him some food from what little they have. That evening around the fire, after the boy has fallen asleep, the old man says, “When I saw your son I thought I was seeing an angel.” In this dying world where cannibalism is prevalent children, being easy prey, have become practically extinct. The father replies, “To me, he’s more than an angel. He’s God!”

The boy is a Christ-like figure for he is a beacon of hope and light in a very dark and dangerous world. He reminded me of that passage in John‘s gospel which says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:5) The world into which Jesus was born was full of despair and hopelessness. True, the world was at peace (Pax Romana) and Rome was at the height of its power, but there was a spiritual ennui, torpor, malaise that was sapping the life from Rome and her citizens. The emperor provided games and bread in abundance in order to mollify the people, but deep down the empire was dying.

There are other religiously significant scenes that I could describe that, I think, makes the film worth seeing. You should see the movie for yourself. Like I said, it’s a dark film, but as the gospel of John put it, there is a ray of light that pierces through the gloominess leaving you with a sense of hope in spite of the darkness.