The Road

Movie review by Jeffrey Anderson, Common Sense Media
The Road Poster Image

Common Sense says

age 16+

Touching but grim futuristic tale won't appeal to kids.

R 2009 119 minutes
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Parents say

age 15+

Based on 18 reviews

Kids say

age 14+

Based on 16 reviews

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A Lot or a Little?

The parents' guide to what's in this movie.

What Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Road (based on the 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Cormac McCarthy) is a relentlessly grim, gray portrait of a future in which an unnamed disaster has wiped most living things from the Earth, food is scarce, and people have resorted to cannibalism. (In other words, not a kid movie!) The main characters are a man (Viggo Mortensen) and his 10-year-old son; their relationship is wonderfully touching and ever hopeful, but the surrounding movie is depressing and sometimes violent, with many depictions of and references to suicide (including the boy's mother), as well as some scenes with gunfire and threats. Though older teens and adults may find it a meaningful, if not exactly entertaining, experience, know that it's not the Mad Max-type action movie that some ads have promised.

Community Reviews

lilibaby
lilibaby Adult
April 22, 2021
age 12+

Sad but emotional

It does have really harsh scenes but a mature child who understands this is a dystopian world resulting from a major catastrophe will understand why everything is so bleak.
Erika F.
Erika F. Adult
November 8, 2019
age 18+

Gritty, dark, and very moving yet extremely sad post-apocalyptic story

The whole movie from start to finish is heartbreaking, and the viewer is constantly on edge as a father attempts to survive in a world after the world has ended... in a place where society has completely dismantled and humans have turned to their most animalistic nature, a father travels across the country in hopes of finding a place to survive with his very young son. Throughout, you’re faced with humans who act less like humans than animals, who hunt other humans and band together in groups to thieve and murder in their own attempts to survive. Without explaining why the world had ended at all, father and son are constantly in search of food and shelter for survival. Aside from all of it being extremely grey and dismal and depressing, there are a few heart pounding scenes that show anything from a group of men trying to lure a young boy to them, to father & son discovering a house basement full of starved skinny almost-people who attack them and who obviously have been cannibalized and kept captive to use for food (with limbs missing and cut off). Throughout the whole movie I was on edge and extremely depressed, and even after it ended it seemed to stick with me quite a while. It left me with a heavy heart and gross, depressed feeling, since the whole movie from the beginning— where the wife/mother walks into the burning woods to kill herself, to the end where nothings really even fixed or found, it just kind of ends. It disturbed me quite a bit, almost as much as the Kormac McCarthy novel it’s based off of, but Viggo Mortensen did put on an incredible performance throughout. For anyone touched easily by films with children in them (or who has young children themselves), you may want to steer clear of the heartbreak; and for any children/young teens, I don’t think there’s any purpose to watching at all. It’s quite dark and disturbing and incredibly sad

This title has:

Great role models
Too much violence
Too much swearing
See all 18 parent reviews

What's the Story?

In the future, an unnamed disaster has ravaged Earth, wiping out most animal and plant life. Electricity is gone, food is scarce, and everything has turned cold and gray from falling ash. A man (Viggo Mortensen) and his 10-year-old son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) make their way along the dangerous road toward the coast in the hopes of finding something -- anything -- there. Along the way, they meet some dangerous cannibals -- as well as some good people -- and together they must nurture their fragile flame of hope.

Is It Any Good?

The Road is a well-made movie and a powerful story. But despite the characters' persistent hope, the relentlessly grim material -- including the constant, cold, gray visuals -- can be overwhelming, somewhat stalling the drama's forward momentum. Indeed, it's hard to argue that Hillcoat's intense visual presentation adds anything to or improves upon McCarthy's spare prose. Overall though, The Road is effective -- and interesting as a comparison for those who loved the book.

Australian director John Hillcoat (The Proposition) has brought the 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men) to the screen faithfully, with only a few dramatic additions for the actors' benefit, as well as at least one action-oriented sequence. The emotional core of the movie is the same as the book: the moving relationship between the man and his son and the way they rely on each other for hope and survival.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about the unnamed disaster that brought the world to this point. What would life be like after something like that? What could or couldn't you do anymore?

  • Why is the boy more hopeful and trustworthy than his father? What could the boy know or understand that his father doesn't?

  • What made the boy's mother commit suicide? Why did she give up hope when the man and the boy still had hope?

Movie Details

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