A dreary, dire documentation of a post-apocalyptic future, "The Road" is the story of a father and son wandering the barren landscape, searching their souls for some sliver of hope that when they reach the coast, and see the ocean, they will discover some solace from the agony that is day-to-day life.

All along the way, as they follow the weaving highway, they run into mobs of thugs, who have apparently turned to cannibalism and mean them ill.

It’s a shocking portrait of a scary future. After some mysterious massive explosion, the skies have gone gray, the people have disappeared, the farming has dried up and the cars have come to a halt.

Humanity is at the brink, and yet in the middle of it all is this parent, trying to find a way to push on. As he tells his boy, they are "carrying the fire" of love in a loveless time.

I picked up the book when I was on vacation in 2008, flipping through the first pages of an experience that would be far more traumatic than I had anticipated. What’s stunning about the book is how little happens, how 50 pages drift by with little dialogue and little more action than man and boy, counting the miles down the pavement.

This starkness is precisely what makes the work so bold and sweeping.

This isn’t a book that simply describes the apocalypse; it makes you feel the emptiness and monotony that would await all those who survived the bang, the fire and the fallout.

Knowing that Oprah Winfrey endorsed the book in her book club, that it was bestowed with the Pulitzer Prize for literature and that Hollywood was making a big-screen adaptation, the first question that hit me back in June 2008 was: How are they going to make a movie out of this?

Two characters. Little to no words. Little to no drama. How does one make a film about endless desperation, and the small flickering of hope in two men’s hearts?

This is the question that precedes "The Road," which is set to hit theaters after a yearlong delay Wednesday.

Dimension Films decided late last year to bump "The Road" back to 2009, clearly believing that they had a serious Oscar contender on their hands. And the buzz has been building. Critics have hailed what they call a faithful adaptation of McCarthy’s source material, singling out Viggo Mortensen for playing the story’s father with a degree of dispassionate conviction that captures the paternal determination that set the book apart.

But now the $64,000 question for any serious fan of the book remains: How could they adapt a story that is so sparse and agonizing? And for those who haven’t read the book, the question is even more serious: How many families will be drawn to a cannibalistic tale of doomsday this holiday season?

Even if the book did win the Pulitzer and Oprah’s heart, will the movie stand a chance of making a dent in the Oscar competition or at the box office?

Beyond this is a much larger question. Some books cannot, and indeed should not, be converted to celluloid. Some experiences are better for the imagination.

Is "The Road" one such cautionary tale, waiting to be dismissed by the masses, or has director John Hillcoat done the impossible and taken a hopeless but inspired novel and captured that precarious balance with visuals and actors?

It’s this holiday season’s biggest gamble at the movie theater. We’ll weigh in with our analysis on Wednesday.

E-mail: SnyderReviews@hotmail.com