By George & Josh Bate
Although not the first novel Stephen King published, The Long Walk was the first novel the acclaimed author ever wrote. The dystopian horror story, published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, hit shelves in 1979, but, despite acclaim, was overshadowed in the 1970s and 1980s by other King works like Carrie and The Shining. In the modern day of cinema in which a Stephen King adaptation seemingly hits theaters every other week, it’s surprising that only now in 2025 are we finally getting an adaptation of The Long Walk. The likes of George A. Romero, Frank Darabont, James Vanderbilt, and André Øvredal were among the names to circulate the project at one point or another, although Lionsgate ultimately managed to get the film off the ground with director Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games) and screenwriter JT Mollner (Strange Darling).
The Long Walk takes place in a dystopian United States nearly two decades after a great war crippled the economy and turned the country into a police state. Every year, a group of teenage boys compete in a televised contest called ‘The Long Walk,’ in which they must maintain a steady walking pace of at least 3 miles an hour. After three warnings, anyone who dips below 3 miles an hour is shot dead, while the last man walking is given a cash prize and granted one wish.
No stranger to movies about deadly televised competitions in a dystopian American (given he directed four movies in The Hunger Games franchise and has another on the way), director Francis Lawrence helms a challenging, harrowing, compassionate, and repetitive adaptation of a beloved novel. Much like the brutal slog the young men find themselves on, Lawrence’s film is deliberately unrelenting and disturbing. Within moments of beginning, the audience learns of the fates of 48 of the 49 boys in the competition. All but one of them is destined to die on this journey, slim odds that the boys often banter about. Such a doomed setup infuses each and every frame with a looming sense of dread, even when characters are joking and laughing around. For a moment, one may get lost in the philosophy or comradery of a given conversation, but Lawrence disperses these lapses sparingly and purposefully in order to never lose sight on just how dreadful this competition is.
Inherent to the nature of its premise, The Long Walk adheres to a rather repetitive narrative structure. One by one, the boys succumb. Some drop below the mandated speed due to fatigue and are shot. Others experience injuries that prevent them from going any further, after which they are also killed. And an unfortunate few endure medical emergencies that suddenly cripple their chances of continuing. Naturally, Lawrence and screenwriter JT Mollner can’t provide an in-depth character study of all 49 competitors, meaning that not every death packs the same emotional punch. That being said, every death packs a punch, almost always punctuated by striking violence and sound design and made all the more unsettling given the victims are just teenagers. Over time, however, as more bodies drop, the narrative formula grows ever more apparent. The character whose ticket is up next is usually pretty easy to spot as the death is almost always preceded by a scene or two more heavily focused on a character largely relegated to the background previously.
Thankfully, due to strong writing from Mollner, the emotion swelling in each scene and surrounding each character offsets the predictability of deaths. Come the end of 2025, it will likely be very difficult to identify a movie more emotionally moving, heartbreaking, and ultimately endearing as The Long Walk. Narrowing in on a group of six or seven competitors allows the film to spend dedicated time to select characters and meaningfully develop their relationships. This is never more evident than through the growing bond between Cooper Hoffman’s Raymond Garraty and David Jonsson’s Peter McVries. The two talented young actors serve as co-leads of the film, with the story primarily unfolding through their eyes. As the walk progresses, the physical strain endlessly amplifies, and more of their fellow competitors drop dead, Garraty and McVries stick together and unconditionally support one another as if they have been friends since childhood. Through their bond, The Long Walk tells a beautiful and unique story of brotherhood. By the rules of the competition, Garraty and McVries are technically rivals as only one can ultimately be crowned champion. Despite this though, the two remain supportive and empathic. More cynical viewers may view their bond as a tad saccharine or even unrealistic given the stakes at hand, but those who are able to buy into their relationship will reap the benefits of a truly touching journey.
Hoffman and Jonsson anchor this journey with gripping and compassionate performances. The son of the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman continues to craft an identity of his own in the film industry with another natural, grounded performance here. Jonsson, meanwhile, follows his star-making turn in Alien: Romulus with another entrancing performance. For film fans, seeing the two trade lines and act side-by-side one another feels like we’re getting a glimpse into two future acting heavyweights who will dominate our screens and award shows for years to come. If this is what they’re capable of at such early stages of their careers, movie goers will be treated with more incredible performances from the duo in the future.
Hoffman and Jonsson’s performances are made all the more impressive given the often stilted nature of the characters. Garraty, McVries, and virtually every other boy on The Long Walk behave and talk in heightened ways that make suspension of disbelief difficult at times. The characters often feel like they’re in a movie, rather than accurate reflections of how actual teenage boys interact and talk. In turn, some of the drama dissipates in moments that are particularly unrealistic and take one out of the movie. To the credit of Mollner’s script, the film admirably replicates the spirit of King’s dialogue. But it’s one thing to hear and watch characters talk and act like this in a book or even in an older film like Stand By Me – it’s another thing to hear it in a more grounded, adult, contemporary movie.
Burdened with more artificial character behaviors and dialogue, The Long Walk sports phenomenal supporting performances nonetheless. There’s a fair few speaking roles in the film, but, beyond Hoffman and Jonsson, Tut Nyuot and Charlie Plummer deserve immense praise for their performances. Nyuot, who is known for appearing in an episode of The Witcher: Blood Origin, delivers what is easily the film’s most emotional moment and, throughout the runtime, uses every second of his screentime to make Arthur Baker a fully fleshed out, lived-in character. The same can be said for Plummer, who viewers may recognize from the excellent psychological thriller The Clovehitch Killer. Plummer plays Barkovitch, the ass hole of the group, always picking on other competitors and getting on everyone’s nerves. As the movie progresses, layers of Barkovitch’s inner psyche are unveiled and, through a strong performance from Plummer, transform the character into something far more interesting and subversive than just the ‘bad guy.’
As The Long Walk gets increasingly difficult for its competitors, Lawrence’s movie steadily improves step-by-step. What can, at times, feel slower in the beginning evolves into an engrossing and disturbingly timely odyssey. The Long Walk holds a harrowing mirror up to modern America in highlighting what can happen if empathy continues the erode the way it is. The politics aren’t particularly nuanced (viewers must only turn on the news to see parallels between the authoritarian police state in the film and the one making its presence ever more evident in Trump’s America), but they work given how emotionally laden they are. With few details provided about how the U.S. became this way and exactly how The Long Walk became a thing, the audience is given room to make their own interpretations and extrapolations, in turn afforded the opportunity to draw as many real-life comparisons as they wish. There are certainly times in which more context of the state of the world would have helped overlook some puzzling motivations and beliefs (such as why all the characters don’t seem to be that afraid of death and how The Long Walk became so normalized), although pointed dialogue in the film’s second half helps to answer some of these questions to a degree. Regardless, like the best horror and thriller movies, the latest Stephen King adaptation fosters chills from what’s going on on-screen and, upon further contemplation, even stronger chills as to what the movie is saying about real life.
VERDICT: 8/10
Adapted from Stephen King’s 1979 novel, The Long Walk tells a harrowing, beautiful, moving, and repetitive story. Paralleling the walk the characters have to endure, Francis Lawrence’s film proves challenging from the get-go as striking violence, deaths of teenagers, and disturbing parallels to modern America populate most of the runtime. The fascinating premise entails that, from the very beginning, the audience knows that 98% of the film’s characters will die, a fact that creates a looming dread and tension seeping through every frame. Although the premise ensures the film unfolds rather formulaically and predictably, the emotions are so powerful that overlooking this issue becomes easier. The relationship between Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson’s characters in particular proves incredibly moving in its portrayal of brotherhood and unconditional friendship, even as the characters behave and speak in heightened, even unnatural ways that can derail suspension of disbelief at times. Bolstering compelling supporting turns from Tut Nyut and Charlie Plummer, The Long Walk improves as it goes along and as the walk becomes longer and longer for the competitors, especially as the blunt yet effective political messaging hits disturbingly close to home for modern America. The Long Walk may be a brutal slog for its characters, but, for its viewers, an unsettling, captivating, and ultimately touching journey awaits.