Father and son trek across a desolate, post-apocalyptic landscape hounded by bands of cannibals and the looming threat of starvation. Yes, it is as depressing as it sounds. The Road evokes this bleak world-view with apparent ease; both with its sunless atmosphere and steadfast characters yet I found myself willing it hadn’t. Never have I been so emotionally drained by such an apparently great film to the point that my enjoyment went into negative numbers (and my film collection is about as joyous as the Eastenders Christmas special).

The exact cause of this apocalypse is left mysterious and thankfully so: there’s only so much misery you can pack into just under two hours.  The plot is played out through the journey the father and his son make from their home down to the coast. Any infrastructure has been stripped bare along with food supplies so that every day is a struggle to either find food or avoid those who don’t want to look quite so hard.  This relationship is wonderfully developed by Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee and provides moments of glorious respite from hiding behind my jumper. Very simple things are transformed into events of elation: the father giving his son a can of Coke for the first time feels like nothing less than a trip to Disneyland.

Genre classification is another thorny issue here. This isn’t a horror film in the traditional sense, delivering far more than the arbitrary jumps and monosyllabic zombies. The jumps become heartstopping dread and the zombies are cast aside for the visceral deterioration of humanity. What makes The Road such an ordeal is the complete, unswerving reality of all this. There are no imaginary monsters or psychopaths; instead we have a plausible evolution of humanity turning to cannibalism to survive. Complete brutality is hammered in your face again and again: one family’s solution to the food crisis is to store an abundance of (human) meat in the basement, eating only a limb at a time. This horror looks like it might let up only with the saccharine ending, which feels like a botched job to try and knock down the audience suicide rate. Even so, lurking underneath this schmultz it was clear no solution had been reached.

This is the main problem with The Road: all the separate elements are excellent but they make a whole which I wouldn’t recommend for anyone to see, ever.  I did gain something from the experience, but it certainly wasn’t enough to tip the scales against constant and unspeakable bleakness.  Be cautioned: The Road should come with a mental health warning.