Marche or Crève: a successful adaptation of Stephen King (critic)
One hundred young people walk to death in an epic that tells our warrior and voyeuristic impulses. A dry and relentless story of great efficiency.
Francis Lawrence transposes one of Stephen King on the screen on the screen. Written at 18 under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman, this dystopian novel, deeply marked by the Vietnam War, described a youth sacrificed in an absurd ritual: one hundred adolescents, drawn, find themselves condemned to walk endless through the American plains under the eye of a fascinated audience. If they stop, slow down or try to flee, the soldiers who supervise them give them a warning. Three warnings and it is death. At the end, a survivor, rewarded with the “Prize for his dreams”.
The film, very effective, keeps the narrative drought of the novel: no hidden plot, no miracle, just an exhausting “long step” where each step brings the tomb. Cooper Hoffman (Licorice Pizza) embodies Ray Garraty, a fragile figure of resistance, confronted with the frozen cruelty of the major camped by Mark Hamill. And this relentless mechanics, Mirror of Vietnam yesterday, resonates today with other media wars and the contemporary obsession for the spectacle of suffering. Visually, we can see that Lawrence claims the Hunger Games inheritance: immersive camera, sensory intensity, young and charismatic casting. But where the Young Adult saga opened on hope and rebellion, walking or burst chooses the abyss. It is not an entertainment, but an experience: a film where the anxiety of the present is superimposed on the ghosts of the past, and where victory has the bitter taste of naked survival.
Of Francis Lawrence. With Cooper Hoffman, Mark Hamill, David Jonsson … Duration 1h48. Release on October 1, 2025
