Though the film’s release-date changes boded poorly, Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer winner gets a grim, gaunt and mostly satisfactory treatment from The Proposition maker John Hillcoat. Just about the only American actor alive who could’ve fit into the role, Viggo Mortensen is excellent as the bedraggled father who’s desperate to protect his young son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) as they travel through post-apocalyptic ruins that look like Edward Burtynsky pictures. While there’s a touch too much sweetness in Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ musical score and the film’s last moments, The Road stays true to the essence and the emotional core of McCarthy’s bleak vision of where we’re heading (and where much of the planet already is).