by Foster Harlfinger, Contributing Writer
“Congratulations!” reads the opening text of The Long Walk. Raymond Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) has been chosen by lottery to represent his state in the annual Long Walk, and “the entire nation will be watching the live broadcast with admiration and awe.”
Only one of the game’s 50 participants will win the grand prize — a cash reward, along with one wish of their choosing to be granted. The promise of a life free from poverty and hardship for the eventual victor is strong, but the Long Walk is no ordinary contest.
The premise is simple: Each of the 50 boys selected to participate must maintain a pace of three miles per hour, and the last man standing wins. The remaining 49 participants will not only be robbed of the competition’s ultimate reward, they will be robbed of their lives. The walkers receive a warning each time they drop below the desired pace, and after the third warning they will be shot dead by one of the tank-driving soldiers that surround them at all times. Overseen by the looming shadow of the Major (Mark Hamill), the inevitable consequence for all but the final champion hangs over the film like an ever-darkening cloud, waiting to burst at any moment.
The Long Walk could have easily attempted a more young-adult, Hunger Games approach to its story, and one could be forgiven for expecting such an adaptation, given that The Long Walk is helmed by Francis Lawrence, who directed four out of the five Hunter Games films. Instead, the film offers a far more brutal and often depressing take, emphasizing the horrific and hopeless nature of its premise, pulling at your heartstrings as you come to know and love so many of its well-realized characters.
Lawrence and screenwriter JT Mollner rightfully recognize that more captivating than the premise itself is the question of why the walkers would ever submit their names into the Long Walk lottery to begin with. The film’s walk-and-talk structure operates like a dystopian Breakfast Club, allowing for all manner of revealing conversations to emerge from the burgeoning friendship between Ray and his fellow walkers, none more prominent than the confident but not cocky Peter McVries (David Jonsson).
Hoffman and, in particular, Jonsson deliver performances which elevate the film to unexpected heights of emotion, as the inevitability of their doomed friendship fills every conversation with an overpowering feeling of helplessness and despair. Based on the 1979 novel by Stephen King — then written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman — the film smartly identifies that The Long Walk is, at its core, a story of friendship. Lawrence provides an experience that is tense, frightening, and engaging, but should one choose to dig past the surface, The Long Walk offers a powerful argument for the value of community and companionship as an antidote to a world that increasingly seeks to desensitize its residents to violence and pain.
Rating: Loved It
The Long Walk is currently playing in theaters
You can read more from Foster Harlfinger, and follow him on Letterboxd