THE LONG WALK (2025)

When Stephen King first wrote the Long Walk, he was 19 going on 20 years old, and while he subsequently wrote so much about what scared him on supernatural and fantastical levels - and as well about the dregs and dark side of humanity itself through many of the most (polite to say) flawed and damaged character who turn to evil - the idea here must have been so significant to get on the page because he was a) the age of the characters at the time and b) it was very much about Vietnam, and his own chances of being drafted were a live issue.

The lottery, the draft, the many all too young and equally clueless and terrified and strong and pushy and actually caring and vulnerable guys, all put into an impossible situation they cannot get out of and means certain death, it's all there in the tale of Garraty and McVries and all the others who have to do "The Walk" or else get their "Ticket".... and that is all but one of them, natche.

But today, the story and world this is set in is so recognizable that it serves as such a stark warning it verges much closer to the "we are here" terrain than even the Hunger Games - several of those films also directed by this film's maker, Francis Lawrence.  We are in a place and time, at least here in America, where it is easily conceivable that between the forces of anti-intellectualism (notice what happens to Garraty's father, how can you not) and economic fallout (both book and film wisely say there was a "war" that led to this but nevermind what or with who), something like this under Totalitarianism isn't that removed. 

 What is so satisfying about his adaptation is not just that he got the book - probably even more so than the much changed I Am Legend version he made some years back (that was good but had its problems) - and what Richard Bachman nay King wanted to convey, he makes it just as if not more grisly and suspenseful as a film, and one that leaves you increasingly shattered the longer you are with these guys.  Kind of remarkable to think at the start of his young writing career he wrote his "All Quiet on the Western Front," only these guys are not as uh... initially excited for the prospect of going off to this adventure.

Like the book, this digs into your guts and doesn't let go for 105 minutes, and it is because of the humanity on display far more than any carnage or blood (and this is that - I am reminded why I thought Oliver Stone or George Romero could have made it, and the latter was attached for a minute, but I digress).  When I was leaving the film with my wife and Mother, both also read the book previously, the latter made a compelling point about what the film says about life and death: "Sometimes, life isn't worth it."  That may be a grim statement, but it is a mostly bleak tale where the stakes are so ruthless that what it comes down to is how much value someone else will have for the one right next to them, and that mattering more for whoever is left in the end than what the "state" says it is.

The brilliance of Lawrence's direction, what I mean by that he "gets" the book, is that, aside from the ending which, for me, is a not unwelcome change in the context of this version of the story, there is the indomitable spirit of these young men, both the ones who are trying to push through and those who try and eventually give up or give in to the death that awaits them, and does not get in the way of that.  I can see some audiences coming to this having not read the book and just being completely dispirited with the human and/or American experiment, and that is fair (maybe watch the trailer and see if you are in the mood, it is one of those).  But Lawrence is true to that vision and he and writer JT Mollner keep it wisely on the young men on that road and for one flashback exception never deviate from it.  There is no cutaways to the crowds watching on TV, only those who are on the sides of the roads and looking on with their own empty curiosity.

The other part of the bravura filmmaking comes just from what a director should do which is cast well.  Mark Hammil as the Major is one thing, a role that I am sure he got the voice for pretty quickly as soon as he read the script (and another wise choice, never takes his glasses off, why bother connecting to someone else after all), but Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Charlie Plummer and Ben Wang among many others (and Judy Greer for a few key pathos-stuffed scenes) are another level of what makes this so special.  

They are on camera for so long and have to show how these men have to come together - Musketeers, as the saying goes - or fall apart.  Some choose chaos and those are the ones who die very early on.  Others stick closer together while others splinter and how they get left behind, cause others to lag and then the guilt from that, everyone plays it with conviction and a whole ocean of emotional highs and lows.

Jonsson in particular is so incredible because he is playing such a damaged, lost kind of soul who has so much warmth and strength to put into his walking and his connection that forms with Garraty (Hoffman also wonderful, a lot of natural humor coming off at times when Garraty isn't exhausted or pissed or ready to drop, which is not uncommon and great at that too). 

He is just so good in this role and makes us believe in one of the core themes that King-Bach was after at the time in the book: if you are going to continue to live when death is all around you, or just the worst possible situation, you have to live for the people who need you, even if they don't think or realize they do.  I know, I know, "get busy living or get busy dying" was another story, but it also fits here, probably moreso, and this is in a scenario where the likelihood of dying is... high!

It is about war, it's about survival, I am sure there are writers who have more time and depth who can also read Holocaust imagery into this (after all, how many times were those taken from one camp to another by foot and, I dunno, some made it and some definitely did not), and about looking right into the glaring black heart of an Authoritarian state that, by the way, is so broken and broke that this whole walk is happening to start with, and screaming that it is against what humanity is at its best which is about connecting and caring and compassion.  

There are many times in this captivating and doggedly harrowing film where there is such pain for what is happening and that all comes from how glued the cast is and how keyed in Lawrence and Mollner and company make this material. 

So... yeah, The Shining, Shawshank, Dead Zone, Misery, Stand by Me: the book was awesome, and so is the film!   ::plops on the ground::