The Long Walk: Finding Hope in the Face of Impending Doom
I first read The Long Walk in middle school, I was deep in the throes of a Stephen King obsession. By this point, I had made my way through the classics: The Shining, Carrie, Pet Sematary, you name it. As I trawled through the depths of his more obscure offerings, I found The Long Walk, which has haunted me ever since. It’s not scary in the same way as a traditional Stephen King book is, with no killer clowns or axe-wielding murderers in sight. It’s terrifying due to its simplicity and how disturbingly familiar it feels.
The Long Walk follows Ray Garraty (played by Cooper Hoffman), a teenage boy who competes in the titular Long Walk: an annual event that grants the last man standing unimaginable wealth and the chance to have one singular wish granted by the totalitarian government that organizes the competition. The rules are straightforward: all you need to do is keep walking at a constant pace of three miles per hour. If you fall below this pace three times, the soldiers following the group shoot you in the head.
You might be thinking, “How can you make an interesting feature film about a bunch of guys walking down a road?” As much as I love the book, I was wary about how it would translate into a visual medium. Books have the luxury of utilizing narration and a character’s internal monologue to flesh out a simple premise, which is difficult to adapt to film. I needn’t have worried, because I found the film gripping from beginning to end. This is in large part due to the incredible chemistry between the two leads, Ray and Pete McVries (played by David Jonsson). Pete acts as a foil to the more jaded and pessimistic Ray, a staunch optimist who reminds him to stay hopeful, even in the most futile of circumstances. Jonsson is a standout amongst an immensely talented ensemble, delivering a heartfelt and emotional performance. The way the two bounce off of each other and the lengths they’ll go to keep each other alive during the hardest moments of the walk are heartwarming, giving brief spots of light throughout an otherwise bleak film. And boy, is it bleak.
It’s almost too easy to compare The Long Walk to The Hunger Games. Both are stories depicting teenagers forced into life-or-death competitions by a dystopian government. Hell, The Long Walk is directed by Francis Lawrence, the director of the latter four Hunger Games films. However, the most striking difference I found between the two films was their portrayal of violence. Despite its disturbing premise, The Hunger Games is rated PG-13. The most violent scenes of the film are shot with shaky, jolting camera work in order to obfuscate outright depictions of blood and gore. In contrast, the R-rated Long Walk is extremely gory, leaving nothing up to the viewer’s imagination. The camera lingers on the desecrated remains of the fallen contestants, forcing the viewer to confront the brutal reality of the film’s premise. Despite feeling sick to my stomach during several moments, I think it was a great choice. You can’t ignore the violence or your own discomfort, you have to sit with it.
The Long Walk was originally published in the wake of the Vietnam War, as a reaction to years of being forced to bear witness to senseless violence and tragedy at the hands of the United States government. It feels apt that the story was chosen to be put to screen at the present moment. In our current age of social media, we are witnessing more violence and tragedy than ever before, as the United States slides further into facism and countless lives are lost in the genocides taking place overseas. It is impossible to look away and easy to feel hopeless, but The Long Walk reinforces the most important value to carry with you as you try to make a difference: community.
Unlike other stories centered around deadly competition, the boys of The Long Walk maintain a sense of camaraderie the whole way through. They tell stories to pass the time, try to lift each other’s spirits when morale is low, and risk their lives to save each other. The bonds they form feel genuine and meaningful, making it all the more heartbreaking when the boys are picked off one by one. Even Barkovitch (played by Charlie Plummer), a mean-spirited loner whose cruel behavior gets another competitor killed, is eventually broken down by seeing the community the others formed with each other. After spending the film scoffing at the other characters for their attempts at connection, which he saw as a sign of weakness, he breaks down in front of Ray. He weeps about how he regrets antagonizing the others and wishes that he, too, could’ve had a friend by his side during his last moments. The damage has been done at this point; the other walkers view this display with nothing more than pity. It’s a different kind of tragedy in a film engulfed in it, the all-too-familiar result of toxic individualism and the rejection of community.
The Long Walk is an unflinching reminder that, even in the darkest moments where it seems that we are all headed for certain doom, it is still important to lift one another up and fight together for survival and a better world. Even in the face of tragedy, hope is still possible.