The trailer for the film version of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is up on Yahoo. It’s not as gray and miserable-looking as I would’ve expected for of an oh-fuck-its-the-end-of-the-world movie.

Still, I really liked John Hillcoat’s last film, the Proposition, so I’m gonna just hope that the movie is better than the trailer.

(By the way, does anyone know where I can find a copy of Hillcoat’s Ghosts of the Civil Dead?)

UPDATE: Watch the trailer all embedded and shit RIGHT HERE:

Jonah Spangenthal-Lee: Proving you wrong since 1983.

32 replies on “It’s Not As Bleak As I Thought It Would Be”

  1. the trailer seems to focus way too much on the violence in the book…as I remember the story focused much more on the relationship between the father and son. I wonder if its the old bait and switch.

  4. It seems like a bad sign that they chose somewhat well-known actors to play the cannibals. Guy Pearce? Why choose him for a role that shouldn’t even have a single line?

  5. Holy crap, this looks like a trainwreck. Damn, I was really really looking forward to this movie, even though I should have known better. I nominate that as worst trailer of the year, so far.

  6. I’m going to keep optimistic. It looks like a solid cast and the flash towards the end of Michael K Williams from The Wire makes is promising.

  7. I’ve read that all of the footage in this trailer detailing how the world gets the way it gets was created by the TRAILER company and isn’t in the film at all.

    That said…I certainly expected the color palette to be 8 million shades of gray–reading the book, I even imagined the FIRE to be gray–and so, I’m with you, Jonah…it’s not nearly as bleak as I pictured.

    Is it odd that I’m hoping that the movie turns out to be as bleak as possible?

  14. when i watched this, my first thought was, “obviously they are trying to trick people into watching this movie by making it look like an action movie.”

  16. Looks like they’re keeping the mother around a lot longer in the film, too. The Skirt Stays In The Picture.

  18. I bet this is one of those really misleading trailers and the movie’s every bit as quiet as I remember the book being.

    was that Omar Little? Omar walkin

  19. Yeah, the mother hardly figured in the book at all. For all its piercing heartbreak, I loved the book. It wasn’t nearly as explosiony as the trailer, which looks sucky.

  21. Am I the only person who thought this book sucked? There wasn’t anything particularly interesting about it – it was entirely flat with a deus ex machina false-happy ending. Cormac McCarthy isn’t the genius people seem to think he is.

  23. Sorry, you said false-happy ending.

    Which just makes me understand your point even less. (You’re peeved because the book didn’t end all wrapped up in a tidy, happy bow?)

  24. The boy was saved by some random stranger just after his Dad dies. The entire world is filled with horrible people out to kill them, but just by chance someone is willing to care for a child.

    I think the book works a lot better if you think the Dad is a paranoid schizophrenic and now the boy is saved from that.

  25. Karla! Seriously? I just rolled my eyes @20 for claiming @4 was a spoiler but then I came to your comment. Obviously, there is little etiquette on the internet but, really? Not everybody has read the book yet. That was exceedingly inconsiderate and self-centered especially since you offered up one of those “the [book or movie] would have been SO much better if so-and-so had done this.” Really? Well they didn’t. And there as reason for it.

    And yes, Cormac McCarthy is genius. Read Suttree. Or Blood Meridian. Or Child of God. Something that wasn’t put in Oprah’s Book Club.

  27. In the world of The Road, everything is dead or dying. There is nothing new possible. Nothing is growing. Everyone and everything that’s alive is going to die—soon. That’s the happy ending you’re too good for?

  28. I have read Other McCarthy books, and they ARE excellent. This one was not. It wouldn’t get the good reviews if any other name but McCarthy’s was on it.

    Also, SPOILER, the boy’s a girl in the surprise twist ending.

  29. yeah. i kinda felt the book had a mumblecore vibe (kinda bagheady-y). im pretty sure the mom scenes have gotta be dad’s flashbacks. i mean, she is the whole reason he is caring for the child. he feels obligation and duty.

    also, do you think they did the roasted baby scene?

  30. This is my least favorite of McCarthy’s novels, and definitely the one I’d consider the most “Hollywood” all around. I won’t be surprised if the movie is crap. From the trailer, it just looks like every modern zombie movie I’ve ever seen — minus the zombies. Yawn.

    “Blood Meridian” better not suck, though. That book is incredible.

  31. uh, quit your whining…it’s a fucking TRAILER which is a marketing device designed to get the most people to SEE the movie…trailers, good or bad, seldom actually represent what the movie is like. And getting a large number of people to see a two hour movie involving the collapse of modern society, cannibals, babies roasting on spits, skeletal sex slaves and a complete lack of hygiene and hope is going to be a tough sell.

  32. @20,

    Spoiler, wha? All the talk of the mom not being much of a presence in the book is much more of a spoiler than what I wrote.

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