TIFF is in the rearview and now it's time to dive headfirst into the fall movie season. September seems to be pretty stacked compared to past years, and The Long Walk is a pretty damn good start. Of the two Stephen King adaptations lined up this fall, this was the one I was slightly less amped up for, but I read the book a few weeks ago and this very much lived up to my expectations.
The Long Walk is based on King's 1979 novel published under his pseudonym Richard Bachman. Set in a dystopian future, it follows Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) as he competes in "the long walk". Created by the new government regime, "the long walk" sets a group of young men off walking with hopes of being the last man standing. The rules are simple, if your speed goes under 3 miles per hour you get a warning, once you have three warnings your ticket gets punched (you get shot in the head). It's a simple premise but one that King tackled well in the novel, and the team of director Francis Lawrence and screenwriter JT Mollner do an equally strong job here.
Having finished the book recently, it's interesting to look at this as an adaptation. Despite the book coming out nearly half a century ago, Mollner and Lawrence stay pretty true to the source material. Some changes are made, but the story and tone are pretty much plucked straight from the novel which I appreciated. Perhaps the biggest change comes with the ending, which I found to actually be an improvement from the novel's somewhat lackluster conclusion. The other large change is in the amount of contestants. The novel has 100 men going on the walk, compared to 50 here. Early on I could see why that change was made, watching nearly a hundred kids get shot would no doubt get tedious and would extend the runtime way too much. Once things get rolling though I found that it cheapened a bit of the story, leaving the crowd way too thin too early on. The blocking of scenes also faltered a bit as the characters are all clumped together pretty closely. In the book you have some hanging near the back and others running up ahead to get a break from being around everyone, but here you have characters that hate each other walking nearly side by side and speaking negatively of one another as if they weren't in earshot. It's definitely a bit of a nitpick, but logically that blocking just didn't make temporal sense to me.
Where the film nails its adaptation is in the cast. Cooper Hoffman is a perfect choice for Garraty, a fit but stocky young man holding on to a lot emotionally. I love Hoffman in basically everything and he just fits the main role extremely well. He is however, outshone by a masterful performance from David Jonsson. As the charismatic Peter McVries, Jonsson gives a performance that has gotten attention to the point of people calling for him to earn an Oscar nomination. His monologues all hit, and despite not knowing too much about the character you instantly connect with him. I also loved Charlie Plummer as Barkovitch, the unhinged outsider of the walkers. I don't want to spoil his character so I won't go too in depth, but the mannerisms Plummer brought were pretty much exactly how I pictured him in the book. Other highlights of the cast include Ben Wang as Olsen, Tut Nyout as Baker, and Mark Hamill as the Major, the man at the head of everything.
As far as the filmmaking goes, there's only so much you can do with a film focused entirely on a bunch of people walking. It's shot well though, and the colour grading does a great job of giving it that dystopian future feel. The score can be a bit much at times, but has some really shining moments where it fully elevates the emotions. I also appreciated how little Lawrence held back when it came to showing the deaths. They're visceral and make it clear very early on that the film isn't going to sugarcoat anything. Above all though, this is a near two hour movie about people walking that manages to be gripping from start to finish. As far as Stephen King adaptations go I wouldn't put this among the greats, but it does take a firm spot in that solid tier. 3.5/5
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