FAQ

The movie takes place within the few years following an apocalyptic event. Plant and animal life have been wiped out, save for anyone who has managed to survive, like the Man (Viggo Mortensen), the Boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee), and the people they encounter. The lack of wildlife makes their struggle to survive much more difficult since there's nothing to hunt, eat, or harvest for food, so they are forced to scavenge for other food sources.

The Road is a 2006 novel written by American author Cormac McCarthy. The novel was adapted for the screen by British screenwriter Joe Penhall.

In an interview with Wall Street Journal (dated November 20th, 2009), Cormac Mccarthy said the following about the event:A lot of people ask me. I don't have an opinion. At the Santa Fe Institute, I'm with scientists of all disciplines, and some of them in geology said it looked like a meteor to them. But it could be anything, e.g., volcanic activity or nuclear war. It is not really important. The whole thing now is, what do you do? The last time the caldera in Yellowstone blew, the entire North American continent was under about a foot of ash. People who've gone diving in Yellowstone Lake say that there is a bulge in the floor that is now about 100 feet high and the whole thing is just sort of pulsing. From different people you get different answers, but it could go in another three to four thousand years or it could go on Thursday. No one knows

They're never revealed, in neither the novel nor the film. However, the Old Man (Robert Duvall) says at one point that his name is "Ely".

They were kept as a source of meat by a group of people who had, like many others, resorted to cannibalism.

No. However, as the ending credits roll, instead of the musical score, sounds of life—birds chirping, people talking, dogs barking, cars passing, etc.—are heard. This may be to remind viewers of the world as we know it in comparison to the world in which the man and the boy exist. Others think it may be a hopeful hint of what's to come in the boy's future.