The long and winding Road

It might be cold outside (OK, it is cold outside), but at least it's not a barren wasteland inhabited by highly suspect people attacking the weak and weary (OK, maybe it depends where you go on a Saturday night) - unlike in The Road which is out in cinemas this week.

The film is an adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel, a post-apocalyptic nightmare where a man (Viggo Mortensen) and his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) travel the road as the world collapses around them.

Like the novel, this is a bleak vision of the future, a very near future. Also like the novel, not much actually happens, though I won't spoil the plot for anyone new to the story. I enjoyed the film for Mortensen's performance and the look of the film (I'm a sucker for bleak landscapes) but I couldn't help but wonder what the point of making it actually was.

The fact that the story is so minimal works well in the book, McCarthy's prose carrying the reader along with the characters as they get hungrier and dirtier at the turn of each page. On screen the interaction between Mortensen and Smit-McPhee works and the film doesn't outstay its welcome, but whether it remains memorable is another matter.

Sometimes a novel should remain a novel and not be shoehorned into something it isn't, however good the actors. Perhaps viewers of the film who don't know the book will feel differently and if you haven't read it I'd welcome your thoughts on the film.

Otherwise maybe think twice about taking this particular cinematic journey.