The Road is a bleak, terrifying look at a future in which mankind has been driven to an almost primaeval existance.

We join a Man (Viggo Mortensen) and a Boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) as they wander south, searching out scraps of food and attempting to avoid any interaction with the few humans remaining, many of who have resorted to cannibalism in order to survive.

“Are we still the good people?” the Boy asks, as his father becomes ever more desperate to keep himself and his son alive, with the possibility of suicide to end their torment forever in their minds.

The Road is painfully hard to watch at times. Flashbacks of the Woman (Charlize Theron), lounging in a colurful dress in the summer sunshine, are interspersed with her husband and son caked in dirt, trudging across an apocalyptic landscape devoid of life.

Mortensen is a revelation as the Man, and his relationship with Smit-McPhee is touching, tender, yet painfully sad.

The Road is currently showing at the Watershed.