Weekend Movie Forecast: The Road or Me and Orson Welles

Adapted from Cormac McCarthy's bleak post-apocalyptic novel, The Road concerns a father (Viggo Mortensen) and son struggling to survive after an unspecified catastrophe eradicates civilization. J. Hoberman at the Village Voice thinks "perhaps only a visionary genius like Andrei Tarkovsky or a heedless schlockmeister like Michael Bay could have handled the book's combination of visceral terror and mystical reflection. Ultimately, [director John] Hillcoat's The Road is less a disaster (or post-disaster) flick than a sort of global death trip—intended possibly as an audience ordeal in the tradition of The Passion of the Christ, complete with redemptive ending and regularly articulated life lessons. All meetings on the road are potential parables, every repetitive exchange between The Man and The Boy is presented as a mantra, and the appearance of a rheumy, putrid Old Man provides a gabby cameo for guest star Robert Duvall."