'The Long Walk' is America's Eulogy?
Sometimes an author's best work is their earliest pieces. If you were to watch The Long Walk with no given context regarding the source material, one would think that Stephen King wrote this book in the wake of MAGA. Yet you'd be mistaken. Like Andor, The Long Walk is not based on current-day events. But that doesn't stop history from repeating itself. The Vietnam War is speculated to have influenced the novel. In the book, young men are drafted into a task where they most likely will not come back, as the United States is plunged towards militarism, leaving its citizens in a perpetual state of terror.
In other news, the President is threatening the national guard in our country, thrusting us into a scenario where The Long Walk can one day become a reality. What can we do to stop it? Probably nothing legally to stop the bleeding. We've signed our own death warrant, which is exactly why one of King's first published novels (under the pseudonym Richard Bachman) touches upon a depressing reality that we must face or suffer the consequences, rendering The Long Walk not only a powerful film but a mandatory viewing.
There's not a lot of backstory regarding how America became a dystopian society. There's simply an opening font explaining the long walk program, where teenagers are drawn from a lottery. If chosen, you must walk hundreds of miles with no stopping. If you stop, you get shot. There's only one winner in the end. That winner gets whatever they want for the rest of their life.
Here's a plothole. Did anyone ever ask for the long walk program to cease operations? Or is that one of the things you can't request? The rules aren't made very clear, nor do they need to be. Still, just a sliver of exposition would have been nice. Yet, maybe that's not the point. It's not about how we got here. We can fill in the blanks of our own self-destruction, whether it be bigotry, environmental neglect, or complacency. It's about where we are now.
The Long Walk was once a warning, but now it may be a eulogy. The film is incredibly somber. Composer Jeremiah Fraites produces a stunning score. Which is ironic since his previous collaborations with Hunger Games director, Francis Lawrence, weren't very memorable, at least for me. We all know the whistle (which is eye rolling), but what else? I'm not a Hunger Games fan. I consider it to be the Twilight version of Battle Royale. Watering down the violence and featuring goofy character names contradicts the film's dystopian setting, allowing it to market itself to children with glitz and glamour. Kind of like how the actual Hunger Games do.
This is Francis Lawrence's answer to those like me accusing his work of being too weak. The violence is incredibly graphic. But never excessive. The first kill in the film makes it clear to the audience that this will not be an easy watch. If you can't handle it, then leave the theater. Perhaps that first kill went a little too far. It looked a bit like a low-budget horror movie's use of gruesome makeup. Yet the moment is so shocking, you may not notice it. We're anticipating the camera to cut, but it never does, then the film slams cuts to the title after the victim is dead. It's effective, brutal storytelling. It's not the gore, but the context behind the bloodshed that makes it more frightening.
As the boys continued walking, the thought of Rudyard Kipling's "Boots" poem, used in 28 Years Later, came to mind. The sound of the boy's footprints trekking across hundreds of miles is eerily off-putting. It's consistent, hardly ever stopping except for the moments when the score swells up. We're all walking toward our death. The movie could have been updated, allowing all sexes to march, but it's only men which works since it's saying something about masculinity. The movie explores how machismo is often irrelevant when it comes to survival. Acting tough is one thing. One can produce muscles that are the size of mountains. What does it matter if the mind is weak, though?
The children are drilled by The Major (Mark Hamill). Hamill is a wonderful actor. Yet his channeling of George C Scott's General George S. Patton sounds more like the Joker than a military leader. It comes off as cartoony in a setting that's loaded with gloom. Another off-putting factor is DP Jo Willem's cinematography. It looks like digital slop rather than a film. The movie is meant to be desaturated, but it just looks as good as a film you can find on Vimeo. The movie was shot in 5K. When sitting close to the digital screen, the rainbow-colored blurs on the canvas made it appear more like a gigantic monitor than a tool of cinema. Thanks, George Lucas. The feeling of timelssness is gone. If shot on film, the movie would have been even more effective.
No movie is perfect. If there were perfection in something, the world wouldn't have any balance. The Long Walk is one of the best pictures of the year. Is it because of its relevancy? Maybe. Film is meant to be a call to action by reflecting on the past, present, and future. They're there to remind us what has been and what can be. Vietnam pictures, such as The Deer Hunter or Born on the 4th of July, gave us the ugly side of America through a non-sci-fi lens. With the exception of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which warned us of the dangers of A.I. as far back as 1968. The political statement about where America is headed is made very unsubtly, with fireworks shooting above the audience's heads while "America the Beautiful" is being sung. Yet it's incredibly effective.
To give away too much of the plot would be to ruin the film. All I can say is that the character development and performances are fantastic. Cooper Hoffman plays the perfect protagonist who you believe won't win the competition, but can prove you wrong. His best friend in the film, played by David Jonsson, is a wonderful counterbalance to Hoffman's character's cynicism. Where Jonsson's Peter McVries believes in hope, Hoffman's Raymond Garraty folds to despair. If you're thinking the story wraps on a positive note, you'd be wrong. Not only is The Long Walk a harrowing tale, but an important call to action that's a must-see.
The Long Walk releases in theaters nationwide on Friday, September 12.
