Cormac McCarthy was an author that was well-read and well-regarded for years, while simultaneously forgotten anytime literary accolades were handed out. He recently received what could be construed as a long-overdue Pulitzer Prize in fiction for a book that most certainly deserved it. The author wrote for 30 years before winning a National Book Award for a minor work — and suddenly he gets two film adaptations in three years? Nice.

The Pulitzer-winner and film adaptation in question refer, of course, to The Road. Unlike McCarthy’s long tradition of Southern Gothic and pulp Western, it’s a post-apocalyptic tale with a twist. The twist is that no mention is made of what cast this future world into darkness. What killed the crops and animals? What grayed the sky and made ashen the earth? We never even learn the main characters’ names. Viggo Mortensen plays the Man. Relative newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee plays his son, the Boy.

The Man and the Boy are seeking the coast, perhaps as a guide to someplace warmer than the powerless cold of upper-latitude North America. In his review, Roger Ebert poetically mentioned how the coast represents hope in American lore. Whatever hope it represents, the coast seems more like a destination for these two.

The Boy is young, and in the beginning of the film, almost a burden to his survival-seeking father. He is growing up in a world lacking what makes it recognizable to us now. All is in ruin, and human contact is a bad, bad thing. The greatest likelihood is that the humans one may run across are hungry. Cannibal hungry.

The Boy must face the prospect of suicide by revolver over the horrific death of being captured, raped and then eaten alive by people. This is not I Am Legend. There are no great causes to fight for, there are no abundant resources. There is hollow survival or nothing.

Despite this, and the Man’s desperate attempts to show his son love amidst darkness while also teaching him the harsh realities of survival, the Boy asks his father, “Are we the good guys?” “Good” here implying that the Man and the Boy do not eat human flesh. The Man doesn’t know what to say. He knows good and bad are arbitrary. But he nods for his son.

They encounter others on the road, some malicious, some transient, some concealing incredible evil. The others are played by Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce, Michael K. Williams and Garret Dillahunt. Compared to most movies this year, this movie is not about actors playing who they play best. This is a movie where names mean nothing, where anyone can be anything amidst the savagery of a world where survival trumps something to trivially societal as identity. Despite this, when the others are onscreen, their plight is felt. The loss of humankind is palpable.

Unlike other post-apocalyptic films in the wake of Mad Max, The Road does not seek to reunite society, tribal or otherwise. The closest kin is H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. It’s as if humanity has split into two races, the cannibals and the others. Little time is wasted exploring what post-apocalyptic films seem fascinated with: the salvation of society after Armageddon. This is only peripherally a film about Earth becoming Hell. It is more about the relationship between the father and son, full characters despite names.

We see the Man’s flashbacks to his life with his beautiful but sad Wife (Charlize Theron). We see why only the Man and Boy remain, yet we feel connected to the Man, who once loved, who sustains himself on his dreams.

The cinematography is excellent, if bleak, with tasteful use of CGI to complete the dead world. The acting is impeccable, Mortensen driving the picture and Smit-McPhee showing considerable chops as he embodies the Boy’s coming-of-age: he is really two characters, the one at the film’s beginning and entirely another by its end. And even though the story is incredibly depressing, it remains all the more moving. It’s a movie about hope in the face of true hopelessness, and even more about a father and son and how those small bonds are the true humanity we must save in the aftermath of society. And the ending note is a hopeful one, for those afraid of leaving a theater feeling any less than buoyant.