THE LONG WALK Review: A Timely, Panic-Inducing Parable

The Long Walk has limped and stumbled towards adaptation for decades. Along the way, filmmakers fell by the wayside: George A. Romero, Frank Darabont, André Øvredal were each linked to an adaptation of Stephen King’s 1979 novella, before Francis Lawrence finally strode over the finish line. 

Lawrence has form in adapting stories about kids pitted in lethal competition, having directed all but the first instalment of The Hunger Games. Any worries that the glossy dystopia of his previous work may soften the stark brutality of King’s story are soon put to bed, when, less than twenty minutes into The Long Walk a teenage boy develops a cramp. 

His pace slows and a first warning is called from the men with guns walking or riding armored vehicles alongside. Some of his competitors turn to help, urging him to keep walking, but as the pain grips and he falls further behind, a very authentic, very un-YA panic creases the boy’s face. He falls to the asphalt and bleats for mercy. Two further warnings are announced, a moment’s pause full of pleading, and then a single bullet from an assault rifle rips the boy’s face apart.

The camera doesn’t flinch from any of it and the viewer is left in zero doubt that Francis Lawrence means business. This is not The Hunger Games. 

The premise of The Long Walk is simple and terrifying. In a near-future United States, a fascist authority distracts the population from crippling economic conditions with the grim spectacle of The Long Walk—an endless marathon, in which fifty young men must march until only one remains. If they fall below a steady pace of three miles-per-hour, they suffer the fate of the cramping boy. Despite being cast against the wide open spaces of rural America, it’s a hideously claustrophobic idea, the drama confined to conversations between the boys, protagonist Ray Garraty’s internal struggle, and only ruptured by rare moments of pathos and the sound of gunfire.