The Road: Book vs. Movie

"The Road" was both a phenomenal book and film. While reading "The Road" I was both intrigued and interested as to how Hollywood would portray this story, and after seeing the movie I was impressed with how closely the film followed the book. Though the book was enticing and unusual the movie quickly surpassed the book in my opinion. Though the movie followed the book closely there were some differences such as the amount of flashbacks the Father has, the illusion of hope, and the play out of certain events.

The movie surpassed the book because of the way Hollywood made the events in the movie stand out more in my mind and brought a lot more emotion and feeling to the scenes. The movie portrayed many of the important events that took place in the book and didn't leave out any detail. By watching the movie it helped me understand and bring to life the story.

One way that the movie differed from the book was the amount of flashbacks the father has of his wife. In the book the mother was briefly mentioned twice. While the movie had multiple flashbacks of the mother. One scene that stood out to me the most was when the mother finally decided to walk away from the father and the boy and to surrender to life, however in the book the mother didn't just walk away Cormac McCarthy describes the brutally suicide committed by the mother.

Another difference between the movie and the book was the sign of hope given towards the end. In the book McCarthy shows hope by describing fish swimming in the stream, whereas the movie betrayed hope by showing a live beetle fly from an open Chewing Tobacco can. Though they both show signs of hope and life one was presented while the father was still alive and the other after his death.

The last significant difference between the movie and the book is the play out of certain events. In the book the father found clean water in a house that was very crucial because it helped the boy and the father survive but that was not expressed in the movie. Also, in the movie it showed that the boy and the father were able to take a large amount of food from the bunker leaving them enough to spare a can for the robber, but in the book since the boy and the father had lost their cart they were forced to take only as much as they could carry, when they soon ran out of food before they reach the coast. Though these are two key parts of their survival thankfully Hollywood still managed to kept other crucial scenes in the movie.

All in all, the movie followed the book closely, however there were still some differences. I liked how the movie was able to include the most important events and was impressed with how well it was able to be protrayed. A lot of times Hollywood is unable to really capture the authors initial ideas, but I feel in this movie Hollywood hit the nail on the head and captured just was Cormac McCarthy was trying to protray.