Viggo Mortensen Hits "The Road"

On the road with Viggo and Kodi.

It's the future, and it aint pretty.

Cormac McCarthy's 2006 novel, The Road, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was on dozens of top ten lists. And now, with Viggo Mortensen in the starring role, the film version is ready for its own acclaim.

The film follows the novel's story fairly closely. When an unexplained cataclysmic event strikes Earth, an unnamed father and son set out on a journey of survival. In a landscape decimated by devastation and drought, they must survive everything from starvation, sickness, disease and hoardes of bloodthirsty, ravenous raiders.

The film, which hits theaters October 16, stars Viggo Mortensen as the Man and Carlize Theron as his wife, who appears in flashbacks. Director John Hillcoat sought to mimic the book's atmosphere, a "world of severe trauma," by creating a post-apocalyptic world of ash, smoke and grayness.

Though it doesn't come out for a month, The Road is receiving praise from critics who've screened it already. Deborah Young of the Hollywood Reporter calls it a film "shot through with bleak intensity," and critic Emmanuel Leavy says Viggo Mortensen gives a "towering, Oscar-worthy performance."

But don't take their word for it. Plan a trip to the cineplex and hit The Road on your own.

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