The Long Walk: Movie Review
The Long Walk is a dystopian horror novel written in 1979 by Richard Bachman. Unbeknownst to people at the time, Richard Bachman was actually a pseudonym for the master storyteller we now know as Stephen King. King wrote this novel when he was 18, and it was the first novel he had ever published.
The novel is set in a dystopian world where the United States economy is in shambles. To combat this, the government creates a competition in which 50 boys between the ages of 14 to 18 compete in a challenge to see who can walk the furthest, with the walk starting in Northern Maine. The winner is granted unfathomable riches and the fulfillment of one wish of the contestant’s choice. However, there is a deadly catch to this challenge. The rules state that no boy can walk under 3 miles per hour throughout the walk. If they do so, they receive a warning from the soldiers overseeing the walk on a moving platform that closely resembles a tank. If a contestant receives three warnings, they obtain their ticket. Stephen King, being the dark-minded individual that he is, did not intend this “ticket” to be a safe way of exiting the race. Instead of getting to go back home to their families, getting the “ticket” is a glossed-over term for being shot by the soldiers standing atop the half-track (tank), hence the novel being categorized as dystopian horror.
The main character, Ray Garrety, participates in the long walk and ultimately wins; however, this comes with unseen consequences, including the loss of his beloved friend as well as his sanity. In my opinion, The Long Walk is one of the best books Stephen King has ever produced. It is impressive that at the young age of 18, he could write a novel so intriguing that readers stay engaged despite the fact that the entire plot is based on walking. To me, this is a genius concept that can only be executed by an author who knows how to keep his audience disturbed and wanting to read more. I recently read The Long Walk back in May, and soon after discovered there was a movie based on it that would be released this September. I was incredibly excited for this movie release because it was stated in the trailer that those producing it had also produced movies like The Hunger Games, which were smashing successes at the box office and for readers. I therefore convinced my good friend to read The Long Walk in hopes of going to see the film with her. She, too, enjoyed the unique nature of the novel and was equally excited to see the movie alongside me. On a sunny afternoon in September, I picked up my friend from her grandparents’ house and drove us to the beat-up movie theater that sold tickets for only $12. We stocked up on snacks at the local Market Basket and hid them in our bags so we could eat them in the theater. When we entered Theater 4, the trailers had just ended and the movie was about to begin. I noticed that at first glance that the theater was packed full of people, which made me guess that this would be an exciting and fulfilling movie, just as the book had been. However, I was wrong.
The movie adaptation of The Long Walk begins much like the book, but the similarities pretty much end there. The movie was incredibly unrealistic, sporting scenarios where the two remaining characters were still talking and smiling after walking 300 miles straight without stopping. In the book, we observed that they were actually completely delusional and basically on the brink of death by the end of the walk, which is what I would consider to be a more realistic end to the story. Additionally, what frustrated me the most was that the ending the producers created completely changed the course of the movie, which resulted in it not ending in the same way as the novel. As an avid reader, it very much bothers me when movies do not match up with their corresponding books. The book was supposed to end with the main character winning the long walk, but continuing on because he had lost so many people and was deeply traumatized. The remaining walker, who died shortly before Ray won the walk, turned out to be the son of the general who had been in charge of administering the Long Walk since it began. This was an incredibly symbolic ending, indicating that despite the General seeming to be made up of steel, which would imply that his children would be as well, no human, no matter how strong physically, has the mental strength to continue forever. This moment in the novel also added a level of drama to the book when we discovered that Stebbins (the son) was only entered into the race because the Long Walk was losing viewership, and the General needed someone to get the walk into Massachusetts to keep his audience engaged. Through this scene in the novel, we discover that although Stebbins seems to be made out of steel like his father, he was really just a sacrificial lamb that bleeds just as much as everyone else. I thought the ending of the novel was unique and added a much-needed twist that steered away from the boring cliché endings we so often see in dystopian novels.
Instead, the producers decided to create a homoerotic situation between Ray and Peter, a boy Ray befriends before the beginning of the Long Walk. In contrast to the book, the producers decided to kill off Stebbins earlier on and leave Ray and Peter to display a boring and unexciting ending filled with predictable self-sacrifice. However, it is not Peter who dies in the end, it’s Ray. The choice to kill off the main character of the novel completely deviates from the work of Stephen King‘s original book, and to make matters worse, the ending isn’t even better than the book. I would understand a bit more if the writers were able to cook up an ending that made viewers actually feel something, but they predictably failed to complete this task effectively.
It is to my knowledge that Stephen King probably would’ve wanted some aspects of the movie changed due to the fact that he wrote the book so long ago. I could make allowances for those claims that some factors may have been unrealistic; however, this is not a strong point, seeing that the movie was also far from the pinnacle of realism. I can see how this movie may be viewed in a much better light if one had not read the book. It is possible that many of the viewers have not had the privilege of reading it; however, it is still incredibly frustrating as an avid Stephen King reader to see the interpretation of one of your favorite novels, completely changed. At the end of the day, this movie just didn’t deliver. I found myself laughing at the unrealistic and serious moments between Ray and his companions, and sending questioning looks to my friend who sat beside me. If we put things in perspective, this movie might not be so bad for the average film enjoyer; however, I was left incredibly disappointed as a reader.