Review of The Long March, an adaptation as wild and resonant as the original novel

Review of The long walkthe adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. Premieres on November 14th.

Straight to the top 10 of the year’s best, The long march It’s a great film in which the director Francisco Lourenço (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) demonstrates once again his talent for facing an overwhelming dystopia. The base material is excellent, but it’s not particularly easy to transfer to the big screen due to its restrictions.

In the adaptation, written by JT Moliner (Dear stranger), there is substantial changes that serve to update the plot, but above all to measure the impact of each revelation. None, that is, as big as the ending, which seeks to give greater scope to the story’s message.

The first thing to say is that the main actors Cooper Hoffman and David Johnson They do an impeccable job. The film reaches the same level of intensity as the novel: it leaves the same sensations. Watching this leaves you exhausted and drained, without a shred of hope or strength in your body. It’s a very difficult story.

At this point we can say loud and clear: The long march It’s the best Stephen King adaptation this year and there are many that have made it to film and television.

However, none of the others have the same ability to impact the audience and leave them thinking about their existentialist message. What draws attention is the capacity for resonance of an author whose works always seem current and even visionary.

What is the starting point?

In a dystopian future, One hundred teenagers voluntarily participate in a competition to the death called The Long March. Only one person can remain standing, so if you slow down, stop, try to escape or break any of the rules, you will be reprimanded. They have ten seconds to make up and an hour of walking to eliminate each warning. After the third, the coup de grace arrives and a soldier shoots them dead.

Raymond Garraty is number 47 and has a very special motivation to aspire to victory. The winner of the race, in addition to obtaining a large cash prize, can fulfill a wish that will be fulfilled, no matter how exotic it may be.

Along the way, Garraty establishes different relationships with his fellow soldiers, especially getting along with Peter McVries, a young dreamer who tries to focus on the positive side of things and hold on to his best memories to deal with the extremely high level of physical demands of the Long March.

Participants must eat, urinate, defecate and even daydream while continuing to walk day after day and night after night without the heat, rain or tiredness overwhelming them.

One of the biggest challenges Francis Lawrence will face is how to tell the story. And he opted for the most complex cinematographic and narrative formula: using flashbacks only in two very specific and essential moments to tell one of the events that mark the protagonist’s life.

The rest of the time we spend with the participants, in the race, following their evolution, their conversations and their reflections, forced to mature before our eyes and constantly threatened with an abnormal and premature death.

There is evidently a huge social criticisms of a totalitarian regime in which the commander played by Mark Hamill appears to be the star leader but we barely get a glimpse of the depressed world they lived in, after a war. It’s enough to put us in context. If you’re desperate enough to put your life on the line as the only way out, what kind of future do you think awaits you?

There are several aspects that were taken into consideration in the staging: the connection or continuity between the shots, to show the exhaustion and suffering of each of the participants and the gradual increase in the emotional intensity of the story.

The main characters have an evolution curve that leads them to a dramatic outcome and are very well measured to leave us phosphated as spectators, as they go through all the phases: despair, selfishness, camaraderie, euphoria, rebellion, exhaustion, madness… Broken humanity. The long march It’s a high-impact film, one that stays with you for a long time after watching it. Clear, wild, essential.