The Road

John Hillcoat, 2009

There is much to recommend this film, a great premise, a continual tension, a look as bleak as the psychological landscape it explores, a superb performance from Viggo Mortensen.

But never work with children and animals, as the actors cliche goes. And not just because they're unpredictable on set, but because they can't fucking act. Dogs barking at people don't look alarmed, they look like a dog trained to bark on cue. Children don't have the requisite emotional experience to carry a film.

In something like The Road, a child needs to exhibit severe trauma. And be emaciated like Viggo, but of course you're not allowed to starve children for weeks before the shoot. So we end up with a plump child whining like he's being told he can't have money for a Wii.

At the start, this movie explains that all livestock is dead. Yet even before they've told us that there's a horse, one of only two animals in the whole movie (the other's an insect). The horse is such an overexposed animal, there's barely a film without one. Come on directors, give the equines a day off for once.

No cows.