#1 – Dracula

For the majority of my life, I’ve associated with Dracula (the character) with scary things I’d rather not imagine thank you very much. “I vant to suck your blood” refrains and the truly awful Francis Ford Coppola movie that I remember seeing in the theatre did nothing to help the cause. Bram Stoker’s (pictured left) book was mentally filed, “never going to read.”

And then.

#1. The Undeath Match happened.

#2. 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die happened.

#3. The Strand happened (and I fell a little in love with the TP edition I found sitting a top a pile of totally unrelated books).

#4. “My RRHB read the book in one sitting and wouldn’t stop talking about it” happened.

Which meant I simply couldn’t ignore it any longer.

And rightly so. It’s an excellent novel. Echoes of one of my all-time favourite books, Frankenstein, are found within the epistolary format; the novel contains a truly kick-ass female heroine (why was that never portrayed in any film who actually stands up and fights both for her life and for her friends [in a totally appropriate 19th century way, of course] in a way a certain, modern character [ahem, starts with a “B” and ends with a “hella” er “ella”] never does); and there are some really fun, creepy scenes of Dracula making his way to England (the boat, ahhh, the boat) that actually made me shudder and I flipped the pages. Put all of it together and I’m kind of shocked to say that I’m really glad I finally finished Dracula.

If I have but one criticism of Stoker’s work, it would have to be the bits of the book told in colloquial dialogue. I found Van Helsing’s sections hard to understand and the way he spoke to be kind of silly and affected (not his character; that’s exactly the opposite of this). But I got over this quickly as the book’s action and pacing ripped me along on another part of the adventure. The story’s so rich, so layered and so utterly engaging that my own preconceptions about affected speech/dialogue in novels can be set aside.

Also, it’s pretty neat to see the literary evolution of the vampire from the sort-of beginning. I’m sure there were earlier moments in terms of the vampire appearing in literature, but I like thinking about all the moments in pop culture that has sprung from this particular text. Annywaaay, I just loved it.

READING CHALLENGES: 1001, baby.

WHAT’S UP NEXT: Reading The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt, Clean by Alejandro Junger, the first Sookie Stackhouse book and Sometimes a Great Notion. Yes, we’ll see which one I actually finish first. Your guess is as good as mine.

TRH Movie – (500) Days of Summer

There’s not a single stitch of doubt in my mind that I’m a sentimental girl. I have a few movies that I watch over and over again when I get that girlish need for imagined romance. Tully, Before Sunset, Say Anything — you know, those kind of films. The ones that get under your skin more and more after each repeated viewing. The ones you never get tired of, that you find kind of inspiring regardless of the odd cliche thrown in here and there. Well, (500) Days of Summer has just been added to the aforementioned list.

Summer’s a person, not a season, and the (500) (while I’m not entirely sure what the point of the parenthesis might be other than the fact that the film obviously doesn’t show ALL 500 days) refers to the length of time spent in a relationship. Tom meets Summer at work. She’s out of his league. She’s quirky, wears great clothes and can sing a mean karaoke. They become involved. Words are uttered. Time’s spent. Things wind up. Maybe they unravel in interesting ways. But at the end of it, you’re enamored by them — they’re dangerously quirky and fundamentally flawed, qualities I much admire in films of the romantic, ahem, nature.

But what I truly admired about (500) Days of Summer was the film’s storytelling. It moves back and forth like memory, discombobulated and out of sync, through their relationship. Starts at the end, works its way to the beginning, winds past the middle, perks up for a day or two at either end, and yet, you never get lost. You’re happy to be thrown in to the places that feel important (or not); to observe the differences a month can make; to wander into the sprawl that defines these two 20-somethings.

It’s a whimsical film, and if you can stand a little whimsy with your love story, then I’d say you’ll enjoy this picture as much as I did. You’ll revel a little bit in how they listen to The Smiths (maybe a bit too much), how they dispense of some indie cliches but not others (oh wise baby sister sage, yawn), and hold your heart in all the right places at more than one crucial, ideally filmed moment. It’s delicious. And I’ve already ordered a copy, getting myself all ready for the summer when I can have a mini-festival of all these films in a row. Perfect for a hot summer day at the cottage after you’ve spent a few hours in sun, written a bunch of great pages, and are looking for that one sweet escape with a mint julep and some jelly beans at the ready.

New Year’s Revolutions 2010

I’m a bit late with my New Year’s Revolutions for 2010. Usually, I write them the day before the year actually starts so I can step directly onto the right foot before the countdown begins.

To review: New Year’s Revolutions 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009

Where I feel I ended up depends on how we look at the year that just passed. There’s a line in a Raconteurs song that I adore that goes, “It’s been a wasted, worried year.” And that’s kind of how I feel about 2009 in general. I spent a lot of it upset, irritated, frustrated, ill and almost dead. But despite the negatives, I managed to tackle quite a few of the things on my list for last year: I kept the weight off (saved in the regard by the almost-dead episode this summer); have been exercising regularly (swimming, among other things); have lived a less cluttered life; brought my lunch A LOT; kept the budget in check (and this with massive renovations going on); bought less (with some huge exceptions); and have desperately tried to use what I have (again, with some exceptions).

Not bad, I’d say, for a wasted, worried year.

But my big question is where to go next. What to put on the list for this year? What have I learned and where did these revolutions get me?

1. I am hopelessly addicted to television and movies
Every year I put ‘watch less television’ on the list. Every year I manage NOT to accomplish this goal. It needs drastic measures, like cutting off the cable or throwing out the television. Neither are rational responses. Limiting myself to certain shows has helped. Giving up time wasters has helped too, but the structure of my modern life, and the state of my health, makes it far too easy to spend far too many hours baked out watching bad television. And I try to dress it up all the time by saying that time spent watching a movie isn’t wasted time. It’s artful. It’s cultural. It’s important. The 10 Revolution: Try to watch less. But don’t beat yourself up if it doesn’t happen. Give up the crap. And go to bed earlier to read.

2. I am hopelessly addicted to being miserable at the big “W”
One night, after a particularly rotten, awful week, my RRHB and I were talking about how we aren’t the kind of people who find it easy to just go out and “do a job” and come home. You know those “people”: happy to not be defined by the job, content to get your paycheque and carry on, excited by the prospect of stability and nonplussed about the politics, etc. Wouldn’t life just be easier if we were one of those magical, happy people. Being “Zen” didn’t cut it. In fact, I’d say that I’m far less content now than I was even a year ago. The 10 Revolution: Make small changes to my outlook so I can make good decisions about where I want to go next and what it is I’d like to be doing. Be more positive. Take things less personally. Plan for better options. Take more deep breaths. The answer isn’t for me to become a better person; it’s for me to accept the kind of person I already am, right?

3. Cleanse. Be Strong. Cleanse Again. Breath. And Stretch.
Despite the really shitty health year I’ve had (starting it off on prednisone; ending up down one organ), I’m actually healthier than I’ve been in ages. Restorative yoga, a good, healthy diet, regular exercise, calmer disease — these are all goals I’ve had for the last five years. I finally feel like I’ve gotten somewhere. It’s an interesting feeling, that’s for sure. The 10 Revolution: Keep at it. Cleanse more often. Cleanse properly. Keep swimming. Keep sweating. Keep up with the yoga. It’s all going in the right direction.

4. Take a really, really long, relaxing vacation or two.
With no blackberry, Twitter, Facebook, email, computer, television or anything other than good company and a few good books. The 10 Revolution: Turn off the digital life more often so I can enjoy the real life, but perhaps blog a bit more consistently.

5. Be kinder to the people I love.
This one is self-explanatory. The 10 Revolution: Remember that the choices I’ve made are always the right ones and act like I believe this. Maybe a little of this includes being kinder to myself — but that sounds cheesy.

There you have it. These are my lofty aspirations for 2010. Trust me when I say I have concrete goals too — but these are tucked safely away in another list, written in pencil in a place where I’ll be able to consult them frequently.

TRH Movie – Up in the Air

Time started to be on my side yesterday afternoon. We finished up all of our massive holiday celebrations, paused for a moment together to enjoy our anniversary, and then went our separate ways. I had a couple of things to do at work, and my RRHB went off to do some recording with a friend, which meant I had a free afternoon. What! How could that happen? By the time I got home last night, I hadn’t just hit the proverbial wall, I had ran headlong into it with all the power of an 18-wheeler. However, before that and just after managing to jump in the pool for a bit of swimming, I treated myself to Up in the Air.

George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a high flying (literally) corporate consultant called in to “manage” the termination of large groups of people during restructuring or firms going out of business. Like any industry, even one based on the massive economic problems ransacking the United States, Bingham comes face to face with change. In his instance, the rolling bag, hotel-living lifestyle that goes along with being on the road 330 days of the year comes to a crashing halt the moment a young inky pup upstart presents the idea that the company needs to go “Glocal.” They need to take their “global” and make it “local.”

They’re bringing termination in-house and doing it via Skype. Bingham’s essentially grounded. But before they clip his wings, he argues that Natalie Keener (no irony in her name there, yawn [played by Anna Kendricks]), should come with him to see how impossible virtual firings truly are — real human beings in awful situations faced with a computer screen telling them their life is effectively stopped short seems painfully inhumane to me. And having been through it myself, I tend to agree. If I had walked into the evil corpration and found myself face to face with a talking head Skyped in version of HR, I probably would have lost it even more so than I did during the actual termination interview.

Of course, conclusions are made, lives are changed — because the purpose of the film is to find Ryan Bingham at the crossroads, but like (500) Days of Summer, (which might just be one of my favourite movies of the year) the results aren’t what you’d normally expect, and that’s where you find the true magic in the movie. That’s the thing about indie movies. They take cliched moments, essential rom-com stuff, and turn them slightly in another direction, making them seem more real in a way that, say, The Ugly Truth, just can’t.

And, there are lots of these moments in Up in the Air: the meet cute (Bingham and his love interest, fellow high flyer Alex [played to perfection by Vera Farmiga], meet in an airport bar and bond over Air Miles, bonus points and hotel room service); the wedding shinanigans (Bingham’s sister’s nuptuials); the not-so honest confessions of “real lives” and “real intentions” (Ryan + Alex may or may not have a happy ending); and the aforementions upstart inky pup gets some worldly experience that changes her course (if we’ve all seen In Good Company we know how this turns out).

But I was surprised by a lot of the film too, especially by the cameos, the name actors who drop in for moments when you least expect them, and all of the quasi-documentary-like sections of the film when Ryan and Natalie are at work busy firing people. This film couldn’t have been made even five years ago. It wouldn’t have had the same resonance in terms of the economic situation. It’s real life that makes this movie poignant, and not the other way around, which isn’t normally the way that movies work on an emotional level.

There’s something unsustaining about the lives we’ve created. Maybe this is the message from the film. That all of the modern advances that have brought us to the brink of collapse can do as Ryan suggests, send a message to take you in another direction. That having a goal that’s tangible on a human rather than a socio-economic level isn’t necessarily a weakness but a sign of a different kind of strength. There’s poetry in that, I think. Also, I’m thinking that it’s probably never a good idea for me to go see these kinds of movies by myself. It’s always good to have company to stop the philosophical stuff from just roaming around in my head until I feel a little batty.

Lastly, just like Michael Clayton, another film I absolutely loved, George Clooney proves time and time again that he can play one hell of a modern leading man. Oh, and on the way home, I managed to sit in a subway car littered with ads for Ryerson University’s continuing ed programs. Shaky photo attached. Interesting coincidence, I’d say.

#68 – The Law of Dreams

In a way, I think I’ve been waiting for The Law of Dreams. It’s that kind of book that fills up a void: the missing space after I finished reading Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin, another sweeping epic of a book that changed me when I closed the cover. These are stories that stay with you. These are the books meant to be read. These are the ones that you add to life lists.

The Law of Dreams won the GG in 2006, rightfully. It’s a story about the Irish Famine, but like Let the Great World Spin, the event itself serves as a backdrop, as an impetus, for the novel’s protagonist, Fergus, to step out into the world. He doesn’t really have any choice. The famine has devastated his way of life — tenant farmers on a large estate, a roaming father comes home the minute the potatoes turn up black, refuses to leave, and months later, families all across Ireland are destitute, starving, and forced out into the world to not only find a fortune, but to survive.

Once Fergus leaves as his house burns, he joins a rag-tag group of children who beg, steal, and even much worse until one tragic event forces him to leave this second family behind. This pattern continues for the poor boy. He travels, works for a bit, finds a subtle sense of stability until the moment when an act of unprecedented violence forces him in yet another direction. He works the rails for a time to earn enough money for passage to Canada. He barely survives the passage. He manages to set foot on Canadian soil but that doesn’t mean Fergus remains headed for a happy ending. These pedestrian, modern concerns, a quest for happiness in a world where the basics of life are taken for granted, well, that’s just not what’s on his mind.

Behrens writes, “Sometimes your heart cracks and tells you what to do.” Throughout this entire story, Fergus follows his heart, often to his detriment, all the way to Grosse Île, where one utterly heartbreaking moment changes his course yet once again. It’s Homeric, this odyssey, and this young man grows up in a way that the traditional sense of a buldingsroman can’t encompass. There’s no artifice to this story but that’s not to say Behrens use of language and form isn’t beautiful, it is, but it’s not hiding anything either. There’s a plainness to his observations that cuts right to the essence of human nature, of suffering, and of the need to consistently make decisions under excruciatingly hard circumstances.

Epic yet understated, rough yet delicate, honest yet heart wrenching, The Law of Dreams was one of the best books I’ve read in a long, long time. Highly, highly recommended.

READING CHALLENGES: I’m not at all sure where I am in this year’s Canadian Book Challenge. I’m going to try to figure that out by the end of the year. But this book fits the bill and I’m counting it, hoping that it’ll inspire others to pick it up.

Feeling A Little More Like Myself

This weekend has flown by. We’ve finally got chairs for our dining room, a bookshelf for the living room, and a menu for our three days of holiday entertaining. All the shopping (for our families) is done and I’ve got a new pair of winter boots that don’t leak. It was non-stop yesterday and that compounded with a terrible night’s sleep means I’m a little groggy today as I finish up editing my latest Classic Start.

We went to see The Constantines on Friday night for their 10th anniversary show. We had a grand old time. I did a lot of yelling and shouting. And dancing. And singing along. There was a moment where I thought it would be a fantastically fun idea to dive into the mosh pit as if I were in my early 20s again. A moment of teasing and an insistence on crowd surfing happened, and I changed my mind. On the first week of January, it’ll have been five years since I was let go from Alliance Atlantis, and listening to the Cons made me think of that time again. I listened non-stop to Shine a Light record the summer before they “reorganized” me out of a job. I played it loud and obnoxiously at work when I was there late, frustrated by the lack of support I received, frustrated by the bad management, leaving work tired, angry and upset most days. It was no way to live. But I’m a sensitive girl, and the whole experience left its mark. It’s funny — there’s an element of karma to the fact that the woman who made all of our lives so miserable was herself out of a job a couple of years later and I’ve certainly moved on to a better place.

Perspective isn’t really something that can be taught. It’s like a simple shift in point of view in a narrative — you know that it’ll tell the story better but you’re so wrapped up in the writing you can’t separate yourself from it. I’m a goal setter but that doesn’t necessarily make me a goal getter. I’m not big at risks. I’ve always been afraid to take a leap without having something holding me up. For the most part, that’s my RRHB. He has the most reassuring shoulders. I can always find him in the crowd.

And so I’ve been contemplating what’s next. This year has been so difficult, the one year anniversary of losing my mother, the appendix nightmare, the lack of a proper vacation — it’s all taken its toll. I’m finding myself rushed and irritable, frustrated by the lack of momentum in my life, but always recognizing that every inch equals a decision. Perhaps I should have entered the mosh pit — age and tragic hip be damned. But I had just as much fun from the sidelines surrounded by friends, and remembering that even if I’m lonely most days, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with me. I should be brave enough for it not to matter. I should know what’s really important.

#67 – Little Black Book of Stories

Have you ever noticed I generally start all of my reviews with some long, rambling introduction? Today will be no different.

I’m reading about 4 different books right now (What Should I Do With My Life, The Law of Dreams, Slowing Down to the Speed of Life; can you sense a theme there?), including the only one I’ve finished so far, A.S. Byatt’s engaging short story collection, Little Black Book of Stories. Monday was spent in transit (doctor’s app’t, to and fro from work), which ensured I had a few spare moments to read (and by spare I mean an entire hour in the middle of the day waiting for the damn doctor).

We were at a birthday party this summer when the sister of a friend of mine was telling me the book that she had most enjoyed reading so far in 2009 was A.S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book. As I don’t have a copy that book in my possession, when I found this book just sitting on my shelf, I thought, “yes, that’s it for this week.” Because if you can’t have THE book why not at least try A book by one of the year’s most celebrated writers?

Comprised of five lengthy short stories, Byatt’s expansive imagination coupled with her never-ending quest to aptly describe human saddness (or longing, that might even be a better word), the book reminded me a little of Too Much Happiness. Every single character in the stories has been marred emotionally by their lives — happiness isn’t expected and nor is it gained. Life is rough, untidy, difficult and downright miserable in places. But because Byatt’s an exceptional writer, the undercurrents running through each story, the little bits of lives that exude joy, are there as well. She also has some lovely fantastical elements in each — the stories themselves tend a little toward fairy tales for adults.

My favourite of the five would have to be “Body Art”: an aging doctor released from an unhappy marriage but not his religious convictions finds himself entangled with a young (apparently almost-homeless) artist charged with “brightening” up the ward. Universal questions like how and why is art important to a life are, of course, raised, but the unlikely relationship between the two resonates even more. The central tale, “A Stone Woman,” has lovely fantastic elements, and “The Pink Ribbon” too — even if that story is achingly sad (it too reminded me of Munro, specifically, “The Bear Came Over the Mountain”).

On the whole, this collection was far more satisfying to read than Nocturnes. Because, holy cow, what a snoozer of a book that was.

READING CHALLENGES: Cleaning Out My Closet — a book from the dark corners of my bookshelf, for once. And because this book just feels so British (along with A.S. Byatt being born in England), I’m tagging it for Around the World in 52 Books too. My only reading challenge for next year? To keep up with all of my other reading challenges. Or maybe even finish one or two.

The Sunday Papers, TRH TV & Jersey Shore

We slept in this morning, and I’ve decided that today will not be a complete waste, as was yesterday. The work week was exceptionally long, with sales conference and a general sense of wariness on my part, and so we went out on Friday night with friends for much-needed release. Of course, in my semi-non-drinking state, the three pints that I had rendered me utterly useless almost all day yesterday. And so I watched Jersey Shore online after Zesty sent a funny note about it last week. Good grief. It’s hard not to judge these people. And I suppose that’s the point — the strange obsession that we have with “reality” television seems to be ruining entertainment, as Vanity Fair pointed out in its December issue — as we spend hours (as I did) following the lives of vapid, self-involved, idiotic wastes of earthly space from a fairly protected sense of being morally better than they are.

As everyone starts to follow the Copenhagen conference (the Globe had extensive coverage of global warming in this weekend’s Focus section), a huge discrepancy between where pop culture seems to be headed and the real issues facing our society today. In short, I kind of feel like the environment just doesn’t matter to the masses. I’m sure I’m making ridiculous generalizations, and shouldn’t just use the vapid, ridiculous “characters” from Jersey Shore as my test subjects, but I was honestly disgusted by their lack of awareness, the amount of garbage they produced on screen (all those disposable cups!), and the kinds of things that caused an emotional reaction (feeling “outcasted” and fighting in bars). The men use bucketfuls of product on their hair and the girls who claim they’re “all natural” (in that they aren’t augmented) while piling on ridiculous amounts of make-up and wearing next to nothing.

Maybe I’m just trying to attach a sense of righteousness where it doesn’t belong. The stereotypical muscle-bound meat heads and the girls who love them seem to be partying their way into a z-level fame. These kids can’t aspire to much or else they wouldn’t be on the show in the first place and I often wonder if these shows aren’t meant to depress the viewership as much as appeal to it. How can you not feel defeated about the state of feminism when you watch young girls come up into a house of strangers, allow themselves to be filmed jumping half-naked into a jacuzzi, and pull off their underwear while the three other women in the house call them “skanks” and “whores.” In the same breath, two of the four women in the house then go on to cheat on their significant others while being so drunk they can’t remember what happened, one girl gets “sloppy” (which none of the men appreciate?) on the first night, and the last girl, nicknamed “Sweetheart” leads one roommate on only to make-out minutes later with another fellow from the house. Where’s the dividing line between skank and whore? The determination lies solely with whomever shouts the loudest?

I shouldn’t have watched it. The comedic value of it all was lost on me. Or maybe I’m just too serious these days. Feeling a little lost and neglected in terms of my own life and far too hungover yesterday to contemplate anything more intellectual. But when and how did society fall so far and how do you think these kids are going to feel about themselves when they gain some perspective? Some of them are simply old enough to know better — a man on the cusp of his 30s who is still chasing tail and judging his success in life by how many women are entrapped by his abs should be ashamed of himself. The idea of instant gratification is taken to the nth degrees by this snippet of American life. These kids don’t really want to work (their room and board is paid for by working a shift or two a couple of times a week in a t-shirt shop), their values are family-orientated in a way (they’re mainly Italian-American) when it suits them, there’s no discussion of safe sex, common decency seems non-existent, and sexism on both counts gets confused with sexual attraction in ways that make me feel far, far older than my years.

And the whole time I’m watched, mindful of being entirely the wrong demographic, I kept thinking: we’re wasting the earth’s precious resources on this sh*t. And no one seems to care. I wonder how ironic Pauly D’s Cadillac tattoos will be in however many years when there’s no more gas and there’s nothing left to power their beloved cars. Do you think he’ll even understand the irony?

Three Books To End November (#s 64,65 & 66)

This cold has lingered, and actually rendered me quite useless yesterday, which meant I did a lot of reading (and watching of movies). I finished Mo Hayder’s latest Walking Man novel, Skin (it’s excellent), Anne Giardini’s enjoyable Advice for Italian Boys, and Twilight (note the lack of adjective).

#64 – Skin
Mo Hayder’s writing scares the living bejeezus out of me. She writes excellent mysteries that keep you guessing to the very end. This book picks up right where Ritual ends, picking up the threads of the story just a couple days after Flea Marley and Jack Caffrey solve the muti case they were working on. There’s a serial killer in this book who will send shivers up and down your spine, and the twists and turns that the book takes will no doubt have you shouting, “No!” as much as I did. Mo Hayder’s writing’s as addictive as her stories are — once I started this book, I didn’t put it down until I was finished. There’s a lovely image of Flea in the middle of the book feeling as if the sky is pressing down on her — squeezing all of the air out of her lungs — and the passage was just so perfect, so indicative of Hayder’s simple prose powers, that even if the book had stopped there I would have been satisfied.

#65- Advice for Italian Boys
Full disclosure — I interviewed Anne Giardini for work the other day and had managed to read half the book before sitting down to talk to her (it was a REALLY busy week). Let’s keep in mind that Ms. Giardini’s a CEO of a giant company in her day job as I tell this story.

1. I forgot the battery to my recorder. And had to race back to my desk to get them.

2. Then I put said battery in upside down and had to fight with it to get the little thingy back open to switch it over.

3. I turned it on and set it down in front of her and started the interview. But I didn’t press RECORD. So we had to start the whole interview over again after I realized that I wouldn’t have a single note because I was relying on the audio… Sigh.

Regardless, she’s lovely, and talks how she writes — in long, luxurious sentences. The novel loosely follows the almost coming of age of Nicolo, a twenty-something Italian-Canadian man whose trying to find his way in the world. He still lives at home, works at the gym, and hasn’t quite had a significant relationship with the opposite sex. The middle child (in between two Enzos), Nicolo has a very special relationship to his advice-spilling Nonna, whose sayings pepper the story and the text with old-world common sense. Giardini said that she wanted to write a book about a good man, a man who isn’t without conflict, but one who at his core has a moral centre that’s just right. She accomplishes this, and it’s a breezy, delightful novel that presents the picture of a lovely family that you’d be happy sitting down and sharing a meal with — and damn, I’d bet the food would be fantastic.

#66 – Twilight
I finished it. And that’s all I’m going to say. More to come via our Undeath Match next week.

TRH Movie – The Road

We had saved up our entertainment budget and put our Air Miles to good use (movie passes) so my RRHB said, “why don’t we go to the movies.” At first, he wanted to go see 2012, and then he actually read the reviews. Looking up showtimes, I noticed that The Road was screening at the Queensway, so I suggested we see that instead — it took a little convincing. It’s honestly one of our favourite books — and that doesn’t happen often. We have drastically different taste in reading material.

This film has so many things working in its favour: excellent source material, Viggo Mortensen, a score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, and a director, John Hillcoat, who has a bit of a track record (he directed The Proposition). All the pieces are there, but the film doesn’t quite reach its potential. It’s too long, and the liberties that they take to adapt it to the screen didn’t quite work for me.

Let’s pause for a moment because by no means is this a bad film. Quite the opposite, actually, it’s a very good film. I just wanted it to be a great film (and so did A.O. Scott).

So, let’s start with the positives — Viggo Mortensen plays the Man, the narrator, the father who takes his only child on the road after the apocolypse, consistently heading south because it means survival. He’s excellent: nuanced when necessary, protective, angry, solid, and worthy of the role. The young fellow (Kodi Smit-McPhee) who plays the son was good too — and the pair, worked significantly well together. There’s a lovely balance to the film, don’t get me wrong, the story is heartbreaking, between the son who only knows this ravished world and the father who still remembers aspects of what it was like before the cold. The two of them work this contradiction exceptionally well.

For the most part, it’s a faithful adaptation of the novel. But there are Hollywood elements that I wasn’t sure the story needed: the history of the man’s relationship to the boy’s mother (played by Charlize Theron), a strange trip back to his childhood home (did I miss that from the book?), and cemented the ending.

In a way, it’s these very “movie”-like parts that kind of ruined the film for me — I wanted more The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and we got a little too much of a film like Gerry. I felt the book deserved something a little more stylized, a little less Hollywood, and a little more reflective of McCarthy’s book. More varied dialogue between the two would have helped. It wasn’t to be done away with as a minor part of the book sacrificed as a means to pump up the action so the movie could be more broad-reaching. They tended to repeat the same conversations over and over again — and I remember this differently in the book. The film could have been shorter too — that’s one of the things that I admire about McCarthy’s writing — it’s effective because it’s so sparse.

One thing about the picture that’s utterly worth raving about is the art direction. It’s sobering to see the remnants of our civilization laid to waste and even more so to see humanity loose its essence as food becomes increasingly sparse. The whole film feels bathed in this greyish light, burned out fields where trees used to stand, garbage everywhere, stuff that people hold tight to becomes meaningless if you can’t eat it — strands of pearls are stepped on and over and money blows around like paper. The film looks amazing. Truly. Like I said, it’s a good picture, totally worth seeing in the theatre, and wholly deserving (fingers crossed) of its Oscar potential.

But, holy crap were there knuckleheads in the theatre with us. It was packed but I’m not sure people knew what film they were seeing. Or taking their teenagers too? Wha? I know! One family left twenty minutes in and the kid beside me was half-asleep before the film ever really started. When the movie was over, the group of drunken middle-agers in front of us stood up and said, “Well, they sure were spare on the action in that weren’t they?” I honestly wanted to ask them if they’d even heard of the book, but I held my tongue. Sort of…