When Stephen King began writing his dystopian sci-fi novel The Long Walk in the late 1960s, it was likely intended as a Vietnam War allegory. When it was published in 1979 that conflict was still raw in Americans' minds. Few watching director Francis Lawrence's (with a script by Strange Darling's JT Mollner) take in 2025 will have Nam on their minds, but the story is now open to several more timely interpretations.
Lawrence and Mollner have refrained from updating King's tale to a 21st century setting. What we see on screen is essentially what we likely would have seen if the movie had been made in the '60s or '70s, albeit with some CG blood sprays. The camerawork is physical and practical, with no drone shots or digitally aided defiance of the laws of physics. It might be dismissed as a filmed play on the move, but with two young actors as talented as Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson in the lead roles, focussing on their faces proves a wise move.
The Long Walk is set in an alternative America a decade after the country was ravaged by a civil war. The winning fascist side have established an annual event, the Long Walk of the title, in which 50 young men, one from each state (Isn't that a little unfair? If you're from Wyoming your odds of being selected are one in 300,000, as opposed to California's odds of one in 20 million!), are forced to walk for hundreds of miles until only one remains. If they slow to a pace below 3mph they're given the first of three warnings. After the final warning they're given their "ticket," i.e. they have their brains blown out by the soldiers that accompany them. The winner receives a vast sum of cash, along with the fulfilment of one wish.
The drama centres on Hoffman's Ray and Jonsson's Peter, who quickly bond on their journey. Ray has a steely determination but he doesn't seem out to win for the prize, but rather to try and effect change. Peter doesn't seem all that bothered about winning. A facial scar marking him as a survivor, he has a positive outlook, taking each day as it comes, never letting his circumstances get him down. Other supporting characters emerge from the herd like the sarcastic Hank (a hilarious Ben Wang), the athletic Stebbins (Garrett Wareing), the affable Arthur (Tut Nyuot) and the asshole of the group, Barkovitch (Charlie Plummer).
The Long Walk is something of a reversal of The Lord of the Flies. With the exception of Barkovitch, who early on causes the death of a fellow walker, the young men here work together, even though they know there can ultimately be but one survivor. It's set in a dystopian world but its vision of a collective and common good is positively utopian, the idealism of its '60s genesis remaining intact. Watching these young men bond we're reminded of how rarely we see such male friendship portrayed on screen today. Hoffman and Jonsson have such a genuine chemistry that it lends much weight to our knowledge that one of them won't make it to the end. When Ray speaks about competing for the memory of his father, it's perhaps a case of fiction mirroring reality (if you're not aware, Hoffman is the son of the late Philip Seymour).
With the exception of Cujo, the book is arguably the darkest of King's works and this film doesn't shy away from portraying its cruelty and savagery. The young men's executions are staged in graphic detail, often resembling the sort of footage that emerges from war zones. To return to its Vietnam War roots, some of the killings resemble Eddie Adams' infamous 'Saigon Execution' photo. By the final act we've become desensitised to the killings as we focus our hopes on Ray and Peter, reflecting the survival instincts of the young men on screen.
Young men are no longer drafted by their governments, at least not in the western world, but The Long Walk remains relevant in a world where they're now exploited and manipulated by religious extremists and political influencers. In Mark Hamill's The Major we have a representation of all the old men who have historically sent boys to their deaths, and who continue to do so in more subtle forms today. This film is so loaded with real world resonance that it makes for an uncomfortable watch, but while it's gruelling it's never a slog. The Long Walk is worth the schlep.
Directed by: Francis Lawrence
Starring: Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Judy Greer, Mark Hamill, Charlie Plummer
