‘The Long Walk’: A Standard Stephen King Adaptation
Producer Francis Lawrence and J.T. Mollner’s coming-of-age dystopian survival horror-thriller, The Long Walk, has finally strode into theaters. Based on executive producer Stephen King’s 1979 novel of the same name under King’s pseudonym, Richard Bachman, the adaptation follows a selection of fifty teenage boys chosen to walk endlessly down a road at three miles per hour. In a year that includes adaptations of King’s short stories, “The Monkey” and “Here There Be Tygers,” his novella, The Life of Chuck, and later this fall, his Bachman novel, The Running Man, The Long Walk fits the standard for what both fans and moviegoers could expect from Stephen King as a horror narrator and as a dramatic storyteller.
Francis Lawrence is renowned as the director who has given young adult readers adaptations of Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games novels (with the exclusion of the first entry); while Mollner gained attention for his psychological thriller film, Strange Darling, last year and is currently in talks to adapt another King novel, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, as the director and screenwriter. This director-writer pairing should be brilliant and one for the history books, especially with Lawrence having worked on the DC Comics adaptation Constantine as well as I Am Legend.
Akin to Osgood “Oz” Perkins’ The Monkey, Lawrence and Mollner’s film follows many of the same narrative beats and character points as its source material. At the same time, The Long Walk discovers its own identity as an adaptation that takes detours and shortcuts, which is against the rules for a story such as this.
An ominous stroll through the screenplay for The Long Walk
At an ironic runtime of an hour and forty-eight minutes, The Long Walk can only do so much to satisfy die-hard Stephen King fans, the Constant Readers. The film faithfully brings in Hints, Rules, and Warnings from the pages, such as “Conserve energy whenever possible,” “Save your wind,” “No interference with your fellow Walkers,” etc. Yet, viewers are better off watching Wes Craven’s Scream and Ruben Fleischer’s Zombieland for extensive survival guides in horror.
Mollner changes the novel’s formula by not extrapolating from the Hints and Rules, and although he retains the novel’s three warnings and a “ticket” concept—a boy can replenish warnings after an hour or so—altering the total of Long Walkers from one hundred to fifty and having them walk for three miles per hour instead of four affects the narrative pacing for the characters and the audience. In the novel, it was also a tad more acceptable to walk off the shoulder of the road, so long as it earned a Walker a single warning, whereas the film’s boys immediately earned their “ticket,” i.e., getting shot by a soldier’s carbine rifle.
Speaking of the audience, Lawrence and Mollner’s film is released at a rather awkward time, with gun violence appearing in our local news nearly every day. One of the adaptation’s benefits is that viewers are not shown all the deaths in the foreground. Sometimes, it’s just better to make the insinuation based on gunshots sounding off from a distance, and The Long Walk makes the wise decision of not having to insert a few montage sequences of the Walker count dropping from its initial total to its final person. The reduced focus on gun violence is also an interesting choice. It begs audiences to question whether it’s necessary to take a life or preserve it as long as possible.
A film that dives deep into dystopia
With that said, Mollner’s world-building is as unclear as the novel’s. Why exactly is the United States of America in a financial crisis? And why must this annual event be broadcast to the American public? Long Walkers are to follow along a long road with steep hills here and there, fog or rain occasionally in the atmosphere at every other hour of the day, and the boys are not to stop, not even to sleep at night. The film showcases the boys overcoming each of these issues, but only once. It’s better to display the frequency of these obstacles for severity’s sake, but then again, the actors portraying the boys reportedly walked on the road for fifteen miles a day.
As a movie, The Long Walk isn’t as concerned with its “world” as are Lawrence’s I Am Legend and The Hunger Games films, which may be trouble in and of itself. The road on which the boys walk should have towns and spectators en route, but it truly seems as if the production couldn’t commit to that feat with its twenty-million-dollar budget. This could be the reason why some secondary or minor characters from the novel have diminished roles, e.g., Raymond “Ray” Garraty’s (Cooper Hoffman) girlfriend, Jan, and a married teenager named Scramm. In their place, though, the film provides a spotlight on Garraty’s parents, William (Josh Hamilton) and Ginnie (Judy Greer).
Still, the horror elements are almost tangible, from an abraded cheek, to the crushing of a boy’s legs, to a broken ankle. Some of the kills are done for dark comedy’s sake to alleviate anxieties and unease. The only thing missing is the importance of sore feet and how that leads to the formation of blood and pus at the toes and soles.
Other forks in the road for this Stephen King adaptation
The significant moments from the novel that do make it into the film are depicted and portrayed brilliantly. Garraty’s parting with his mother in the opening scene is heavier, and Hoffman acts well alongside Greer. They share a few scenes together, and without a love interest for Garraty or any of the other boys, The Long Walk centers more on the brotherhood within Garraty’s circle. It suggests that their bond has transformed beyond a friendship within a matter of days. Belts of daily food concentrate and canteens of water refills are narrative devices that open the door to moments of comic relief, suspense, and, naturally, heartfelt levity between the teenage boys.
To reiterate, the changes and omissions to the film can make or break the narrative as an adaptation. Ultimately, I feel as if The Long Walk suffers from conveying anything concrete to viewers and thus fails to reach as far as the novel did. Garraty now has a baseball to throw around during his walk, but it speaks little to his ability to maintain motility. The order in which the boys are given their numbers and name tags is sloppy, even with the Walker total truncated down to fifty. Stebbins (Garrett Wareing) is kind of one-dimensional in being less of a loner and more of a Musketeer archetype. Conversely, absorbing the novel’s Native Walkers, Mike and Joe, into the secondary character Collie Parker (Joshua Odjick) is a neat choice. It speaks volumes, leading to a somewhat heroic fate for Parker.
Like Andy Muschietti’s It duology, Lawrence and Mollner’s story perfectly balances its dramatic aspects with aspects of comedy. This primarily comes from side characters Henry “Hank” Olson (Ben Wang) and the loopy Gary Barkovitch (Charlie Plummer), both of whom are sources of madness within the film’s focal group of Walkers.
Character developments and performances in The Long Walk
If it weren’t for the main cast roster, The Long Walk would be a completely bland cross-genre film. Hoffman brings Garraty to life in such a way that one could tell that he isn’t necessarily the protagonist. Garraty shares the environment with those around him rather than having main character syndrome. He’s humane in his goals and in his means to achieve them, benefiting more from his milieu but sacrificing what makes him too subjective. Hoffman takes from his father, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s dramatic wit and great line delivery.
David Jonsson’s portrayal of Peter “Pete” McVries is easily the best performance in The Long Walk. The actor adds a nearly distracting accent to a character whose tone is more or less similar to the novel’s version of McVries. The four Musketeers would not be the same without him, especially with the new line, “A short friendship is better than no friendship.” Like Garraty, McVries doesn’t have a love interest, so their homoerotic tension as friends has additional layers to peel away. The character possesses ethos and logos as the voice of reason, not unlike Jonsson’s prior role as Andy in Fede Álvarez’s Alien: Romulus.
Tut Nyuot earns his place as a fellow Musketeer and Walker, Arthur “Art” Baker. He possesses composure where others might be hostile, and his contribution as a companion in the circle is meaningful. Moreover, Ben Wang imbues Henry “Hank” Olson with personality. Although he is about as insightful as McVries, the actor delivers pathos into the character, who is most outstanding in the particular statements he often makes. Olson is a fine foil to McVries in this manner, sometimes utilizing loneliness as a survival tactic.
Final thoughts on The Long Walk
Despite a challenging execution, Francis Lawrence and J.T. Mollner’s film adaptation can only prove satisfactory to the extent of the roads traveled. Music composer Jeremiah Fraites, music editor Jason Ruder, and music supervisor Hillary Holmes curate a fascinating dystopian soundtrack consisting of rock and roll music and country music. Production designer Nicolas Lepage crafts an appealing, albeit confined, world, framed skillfully by director of photography Jo Willems.
Having a prolonged inclusion of the Major (Mark Hamill) is unusual and makes the already surreal ending all the more incomprehensible. The Long Walk holds a point that carries on from the novel, but the lack of a solid narrative and multifaceted character development can hold this film adaptation back from attaining excellence. It’s a decent, must-see movie, but really, at what cost?
Also check out: The Life of Chuck is a Cinematic Antidepressant
