That said, The Road’s ending is fairly ambiguous so whether its younger protagonist meets a bleak end or goes on to survive another day of the Mad Max-type apocalypse in the care of a new family is up to the viewer to decide. It’s posited that Guy Pearce’s character and his companions are actually cannibals rather than the saviors they seem to be and have been following the boy until his father died in hopes of securing their next meal. However, some have a much darker interpretation of this potentially hopeful ending for The Road movie.

They tell the boy they’ve been following him and his father for some time and ask if he’d like to accompany them, offering a light at the end of the grim tunnel that is the experience of The Road. A couple of days after the boy’s father dies he’s approached by a man ( played by Prometheus' Guy Pearce and credited as “Veteran”) who is travelling with what appears to be his wife (Molly Parker), their two young kids, and their pet dog. The final scenes of The Road’s ending offer a glimmer of hope - at least according to some. Related: Every Charlize Theron Movie Ranked Worst to Best That's not all that happens though, so here's the full ending of The Road explained.

In The Road, the man kills his assailant with a flare gun he’s scavenged but slowly succumbs to his wound and a worrying cough he’s been plagued with throughout the movie as his son watches him die. As they make their way through a derelict coastal town, the man is shot in the leg with an arrow by a paranoid fellow survivor. At the climax of The Road movie, the pair finally arrive at the coast only to find it just as barren as the mainland. This is as difficult to watch as it sounds, and there’s no let-up during The Road’s ending either. The man tries to protect his son as best he can but realizes how desperate their situation is and so keeps a gun loaded with their last bullet and ensures the boy knows how to take his own life, since death isn't the worst fate for the boy in the post-apocalyptic 2019 shown in The Road.

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