by Charles Kirkland, Jr.
An excruciatingly long contest with the promise of untold riches and the fulfillment of one wish is the background for The Long Walk.
The rules of the annual contest named The Walk are simple. Fifty young men walk continuously along a pre-arranged path at a minimum pace of 3 miles per hour. Fall below the pace, and you will be issued a verbal warning and given thirty seconds to resume your speed. If a walker receives three warnings and stays below the minimum speed for thirty more seconds, his “ticket” will be punched and the walker will be removed from the contest. The Walk continues until there is one remaining contestant who can have whatever they want for the rest of their life as their prize.
The screenplay for The Long Walk was written by JT Mollner (Strange Darling). It is based on the 1979 novel of the same name by Stephen King (under his pseudonym Richard Bachman). The film stars Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Garrett Wareing, Tut Nyuot, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Roman Griffin Davis, Jordan Gonzalez, Josh Hamilton, Judy Greer, and Mark Hamill. The film is directed by Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games).
Lawrence is an interesting choice as director for the film. At first blush, The Long Walk can easily be compared to The Hunger Games. Both films are set in a militarized, economically ravaged America and center around a brutal annual competition. In this film, fifty teenage boys are forced to walk nonstop, facing instantaneous execution if they slacken their pace. Again, like in Hunger Games, the contest is televised as entertainment and cruelly intended to motivate a struggling nation. Since the two properties appear to be closely related cousins, Lawrence seems the perfect choice to direct.
The Long Walk has the reputation of being the first book that Stephen King ever wrote. Eight years before writing Carrie, at the tender age of nineteen, King penned this story under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. King wrote this book long before there was a market for young adult fiction. Recently, though, Walk has been listed as one of the top 100 books for reading by teenage readers. There are even rumors that King’s book was an inspiration for Suzanne Collins’ work.
For those who are fans of the book, it must be said that there are a number of changes from the original book to the screenplay by JT Mollner. But what is the purpose of making a movie without putting your own personal touches on it, right? The warning is that if you are expecting a faithful adaptation of the book, this is not what you are looking for.
All that being said, the plot of the story is very simplistic. The themes are what is eternal. The central theme of survival is explored through the brutal contest where fifty teenage boys (one hundred in the book) must walk without rest under threat of death. Under these dire circumstances, themes of friendship and mutual respect evolve.
The cast is phenomenal. Cooper Hoffman (son of the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman) plays Ray Garraty, the main protagonist, a young man with a secret reason for being on the Walk. Supporting him is David Jonsson’s Peter McVries, another young man who seems to be in the contest for different reasons than everyone else. (The character of McVries in this film is slightly modified from the one in the book.) Both actors work well together and bring a wistful optimism to the film, resembling the pairing of Red and Andy in The Shawshank Redemption.
Rated R for strong bloody violence, grisly images, suicide, pervasive language, and sexual references, The Long Walk is a masterful, purposefully paced, and raw film about survival, trauma, and authoritarian violence. It is so emotionally draining that viewers will truly leave theaters feeling like they walked themselves.
Grade: B