This post has spoilers. Mostly my reviews aren't really reviews; they're rants.
The movie version of The Road nearly got it right. The casting was pretty much spot on (Charlize Theron and Guy Pearce aside). The sets captured the feel and bleakness of the book. It even had the correct meandering, yet tense pace. It was hard to tear my eyes away from the screen. And yet, the movie makers, with one bad choice, destroyed the entire point of the novel. And the frustrating thing is ALL THEY HAD TO DO WAS STICK TO THE ALREADY WRITTEN ENDING. I forgave them for adding the back story with the wife. Whatever. It was unnecessary but it did flesh things out. But the fact that they deviated when it mattered most makes me think that the people involved in the movie had no idea what McCarthy was trying to say.
The point (and here comes the spoiler) is that trust is necessary. That it is okay to reach out to others. The entire narrative sets the boy and the man against each other, with the man going to extremes to protect the boy by not trusting or helping anyone and the boy continuing to try and convince the man to reach out to others. At the end of the book, after the man dies, the boy makes the active choice to stop hiding and stand on the road. It is only because he chose to be found that help was able to find him.. He actively decided to turn his back on the teachings of his father and open himself up to others. That moment is the only moment of hope and faith in the entire story. And the movie missed it.
In the movie, the boy is on the beach when he sees the other people. He has no place to hide. By the time he notices the stranger, he is spotted. Thus, his rescue is an accident. There is no lesson learned and no action by the boy. In the movie, the boy did not learn or grow, he just was lucky. There was no redemption. What a waste.
