Movie Review: The Long Walk

The Long Walk: Review 

Fifty young boys participate in ‘The Long Walk’ in their dystopian American society, in an attempt to boost the country's morale. The winner gets money and one wish for anything in the world. Walk or die. 

Understandably, ‘The Long Walk’ (based on the Stephen King novel, directed by Francis Lawrence), is categorised as a horror and dystopian fiction. The movie portrays both genres, themes and ideas extremely well; however, I find it unusual that the idea of this movie being classified as a sad film does not get more recognition. The movie takes you on the long walk with the 50 participants, makes us experience every emotion the boys do, as well as provide depressing murders. 

Firstly, to acknowledge the rating of 3.5, the only reason for this is because the whole movie is just the boys walking and chatting to each other. There is only so much I feel you can do with that. However, because the story is as basic as walk or die, it must be argued that that heightens the tension of everything else. Suddenly, every conversation is important and the weather is imperative. The effect this has on the audience is mind blowing because you can’t not empathize with the boys, you become a 16-year-old, walking for 400 miles, praying that some of the other boys die but also not wanting anyone to die. 

In contrast to my thoughts on how much walking can be put into a one hour forty-eight-minute movie, ‘The Long Walk’ was packed with so much emotion from despair to brotherhood, but that brotherhood makes the impending despair feel even worse. This movie won’t leave you with a dry eye. Even without being given a deep dive into every boy participating in the long walk, you feel in every part of your being the devastation that Lawrence wanted you to feel through how he directed. 

Amazingly, Lawrence was able to capture the mundane moments in a situation that is completely unusual. These moments of brotherhood keep a strong sense of humanity within an utterly animalistic scenario. In doing this Lawrence is able to drip feed us hope that ultimately, we know doesn’t exist. This is especially relevant when it comes to some of the cast members looking so young and yet eventually have very graphic injuries and deaths. This hope lasts through the movie as the boys’ experience heavy rain and steep hills in the early hours of the morning as the boys, Garraty, Mcvries, baker and Olsen attempt to keep each other up and walking. However, us as the audience can see their love and hope for each other yet we are painfully aware some of them will have to stop. 

Overall, ‘The Long Walk’ is extremely graphic and brutal in its killings, however that horror translates to sadness given the context and the reason the young boys are walking. The movie is definitely worth watching, however you may not stop crying. 

I would rate this: 3.5 stars.

Written by, Jasmine Molineux