The Long Walk

 

Stephen King is 77, and he was in his early 30s when he published The Long Walk under the pen name Richard Bachman in 1979. That was way before the current political darkness and threat of social upheaval, but its story fits like a glove.

Francis Lawrence, director of the Hunger Games series, has given masterful shape to King's dystopian tale of teenage boys representing the 50 states in a "walk or die" competition for great wealth and the granting of a single wish to the lone survivor.

The screenplay by King and J.T. Mollner focuses on a dozen or so of the boys, with the friendship between Ray (Cooper Hoffman, son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Peter (David Jonsson of Alien: Romulus) being the engine behind this grueling and often devastating machine.

The 50 boys, chosen by lottery, gather on a remote Midwestern road, where armed soldiers under the command of The Major (Mark Hamill) wait to escort them on the 300-mile trek. Like competitors in a high school marathon, the boys talk trash to one another, and through this sparring we get to know a bit about each of them, just enough to get us to invest in their fates.

The film's power -- and don't mistake, it is substantial -- lies in what these widely diverse boys reveal about themselves, things that transcend their nightmare world and land squarely in the audience's lap -- and on their hearts.

I put off seeing The Long Walk because I thought its narrative of desperation and death would be too much ... and it nearly is. But it is kept from being unbearably depressing through the performances by Hoffman and Jonsson, mainly. All of the young actors are wonderful.

The bond that Ray and Peter develop, the energy that radiates from their devotion, lifts not only the other boys but the audience as well. It is heartening to see selflessness and sacrifice given such life at a time when it would be far too easy to think we had lost them somewhere down the road.