Stephen King’s first completed novel, set in a dystopian United States where teenage boys are forced each year into a hopeless test of walking until only one remains, took nearly as long to reach the screen as the march it depicts. Written while King was a college freshman and shaped by his fear of the Vietnam draft, the book remained in development limbo for years. George A. Romero tried to adapt it in the late 1980s after calling it one of King’s best works, Frank Darabont pursued it after the success of The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, and James Vanderbilt wrote a draft in the 2010s. It was finally Francis Lawrence, drawing on his work with the Hunger Games films, who completed the project and lifted it from King’s “white whale” pile, which still includes titles like The Talisman, From a Buick 8 and Insomnia.
The film gathers an impressive cast of not-yet-famous but already proven actors for the walk, which has teenage boys forced to keep a pace of three miles per hour or risk receiving a warning, and being shot after the third. From Cooper Hoffman (as strong here as he was in Licorice Pizza) to Roman Griffin Davis (Jojo Rabbit), Charlie Plummer (Words on Bathroom Walls), Ben Wang (American Born Chinese), and the film’s strongest asset, David Jonsson, who with this and Alien: Romulus proves to be one of the best discoveries in recent years. Having such identifiable actors who play well off each other, each bringing hidden tragedy to their roles, makes the ensemble one of the most engaging in recent elimination stories. Getting the casting right seems to have been the film’s top priority, and in that it succeeds.
That strength is clearest with the two leads, whose relationship develops throughout many engaging conversations. Raymond Garraty and Peter McVries come from very different backgrounds, which makes the hopelessness of the world hit in different ways, and their contrasting perspectives and the way they choose to face the walk are captured in smart, compelling dialogue. A midpoint exchange that is well written and beautifully delivered by Jonsson is the film’s best moment, and it single-handedly elevates what would otherwise be a visually plain elimination movie into far richer and more relevant thematic territory. It offers a resonant reflection on how we should face the times we live in, and how it contrasts with our usual and impulsive way of thinking. Their shifting dynamic mile after mile, and the way it culminates in an ending that diverges significantly from the book, is without question the film’s greatest strength.
Once outside these strong moments, the film struggles. Watching the boys walk should build tension, but it becomes repetitive and predictable as it leans into archetypes. The eliminations do not thrill the way Squid Game or even Lawrence’s own Hunger Games films did. Lawrence avoids the kind of stylistic touches that might have made us feel the exhaustion, and instead of creating a cinematic language for it through editing, sound design, or music, the march is presented in the most straightforward way possible. A more daring approach might have followed sweat and blisters through cuts, or used sound that pounds like a clock, or a score that pressed down with every mile. Jeremiah Fraites’ music is built mostly on solemn chords, and while it adds a sense of weight and tragedy, it rarely conveys urgency. At times it underlines the hopelessness of the premise effectively, but too often it leaves the ordeal feeling static when it should have been suffocating and relentless. Imagine for a moment what a Christopher Nolan style of overbearing intensity could have done with this material. Even the makeup is inconsistent, with the boys looking convincingly weary in one scene and as if they had just finished a light workout in the next. The occasional gore jolts the audience, but it feels cheap compared to what might have been achieved by steadily showing the slow deterioration of a single body part mile after mile.
More glimpses of the outside world would definitely have helped. Judy Greer for example appears briefly but adds gravity and grounds the situation from her very first scene that opens the film. The decision to keep outside attention minimal, with small roadside groups instead of roaring Hunger Games crowds or the news coverage of Death Race 2000, makes the world feel too indifferent. That indifference ties neatly to the Vietnam parallel, though as a genre piece it feels underwhelming. Boredom surely would have been my main obstacle in such a walk, but that does not make for the most cinematic of experiences.
While The Long Walk never quite solves the problem of how to make endless walking visually compelling, the changes it makes to the arcs of its two protagonists are so effective that their bond is what ultimately stands as the film’s legacy.
PS: A special presentation of the film had audiences walking throughout the entire screening, totaling 8.4 km. One of the best gimmicks I have seen for this kind of event.