Sunshine and Happiness and the Apocalypse

I'm a big fan of Cormac McCarthy. I've been reading his books for years now, and damn if the Coen Brothers' No Country For Old Men wasn't my favorite movie from three years back. As such, when I heard there was a film version of The Road coming, I was all tingly with excitement. Plus it had Viggo Mortensen in it? He's always fun to watch, and who could have guessed that he'd be such a great actor that he'd steal every one of those Lord of the Rings movies. So of course, I was peeing myself over the coming of The Road. I could hardly wait. But I had to, because as far as I can tell, the film was never released anyplace near to me, which completely sucked ass. And so right up on my Netflix it went, so it would pop up in my mailbox as soon as I could get it.

So now here it is, and it's gorgeous to look at, that's for sure. Viggo looks perfectly balanced on the edge of madness and starvation.

You know it's going to be a comedic romp through Happytown when there's a scene of the father showing the son how to commit suicide with a pistol in the mouth in case everything gets to be too much.

These movies, these stories, they're almost too much for me to watch now that I have a child. Used to be, children in jeopardy stories didn't affect me any more than any other sort of plot did, but now, I'm screwed. Not of course for ham-handed "dinosaurs are going to eat my baby" sorts of stories, mind you, but serious stories like this. Stories that want you to think about if it would be a blessing for your child if you put a bullet through his head rather than let things continue as they are.

There's so much loss and hurt and anguish in this film. I'm drained already and it's only halfway through. I already know how the story ends from reading the novel, so I know it's only going to get worse before it... well, it never really gets better. It's absolutely killing me, but it is so, so very good.

I think I'm going to sleep with Sophie tonight.