On Screen: The Road

When I really enjoy a book, I am usually highly critical of the movie. Too often, a lot of the substance of a book is lost in favor of flashy Hollywood moments designed to bring in an audience. One might think that The Road, with its endless, rambling walking scenes and dry, tutorial-like descriptions of mundane actions would be a director's nightmare and the perfect candidate for a disappointing film like this. Luckily, such was not the case.
The movie of The Road was on point. It almost perfectly captured the atmosphere of the book. As I read the book myself, I envisioned the whole long road as a rambling rural highway, only passing by the occasional family farm or small wild-west-esque ghost town. But the images in the movie reminded me of what the author must have actually intended. They walked through cities and in towns and over underpasses and under bridges. The forests and the buildings they went in looked exactly as I imagined. The casting was great, and the movie didn't really cut out much except for the boat. The use of Occasional voice over was effective and powerful, and the tone of voice was monotone and had an almost bored quality, reminiscent of the tone of the book.
I liked the movie a lot, but I had one problem with it. At the very end, it shows some of the other people that were with the stranger that takes in the son, including the young boy he thought he saw in one town and a dog that barks at the roof of the bunker. It is played off like this group has been following them since almost the beginning of the movie. I didn't get this from the book, and I don't see how it is possible they could have been followed for so long. Part of the significance of the boy deciding to trust the man at the end is that he is still able to keep hope and go with this person he doesn't know despite all these bad people he has seen. But in the movie, the whole family is waiting visibly while the man walks up to the boy on the beach. This takes away from the power of the boy's decision for me.
Despite this, I enjoyed the movie immensely, and it was very emotional. I think it works as a great companion to the book, giving face to the story. I would recommend it to everybody, and I will definitely watch it again.