If there weren’t enough grim dystopian realities in film and TV, this 2025 adaption of Stephen King’s novel ‘The Long Walk’ has another one for us to think about. Set in an alternative, post-war 1970s America, the film follows 50 young men competing in an annual contest with one simple goal: walk until there’s only one person left.
In this walk to the death, the contestants must maintain a pace of at least three miles an hour to stay in the game. If they slow down too much, stop, or stray from the path, they get three warnings until they start following the rules again. Those who get the third warning are instantly shot dead by one of the soldiers following alongside them in tanks. The incentive for taking part in this deadly game? A large sum of money, and one wish that will be granted no matter what it is.
It’s immediately clear that these men have been driven to the walk by deeply desperate times. Their willingness to gamble everything for a chance at an affordable life, paired with the barren landscape surrounding them, depicts a deprived society, rather than a greedy one. It’s suggested that the walk is an attempt to make hard work and patriotism a priority again, after war has drained the country’s economy and sense of purpose. But with only a vague idea of the world we’re in, there’s an expectation that the audience will just accept that this society is being run by bad people with bad ideas, and that’s it.
Finding ourselves in a wasteland, we rely on the characters to help us put the pieces of the puzzle together. The first contestant we meet is Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman), who is this year’s volunteer from Maine. His mother (Judy Greer) has the gut-wrenching job of driving her son to the starting line, which she uses as her last chance to show him the grief he’s already causing her. She begs him not to do it, but there’s no changing his mind now. Soon he’ll be making small talk with the 49 men he’s competing against for his own life.
In the lead up to the walk, we’re introduced to a whole host of different personalities, all with their own motives for taking part. Pete McVries (David Jonsson) becomes a stabilising, encouraging energy for Ray and the others, among more anxious dispositions like Curley (Roman Griffin Davis) and manic ones like Gary Barkovitch (Charlie Plummer). The group is quick to develop a camaraderie between them, establishing roles and finding distractions from the dire situation they’re in, like chanting and sharing rations. The film plays into different archetypes: the nerd, the bully, the know-it-all, the mentor, making it a guessing game of who is the next to go. And it’s not shy of subversion, with so many deaths to play with.
It’s not often you go into a film knowing the exact number of deaths that are coming, and inevitably, many of them are violent and hard to watch. As hours turn into days, the contestants become increasingly numb to the brutal murders happening around them. The first few times, they watch in horror, but by the time the deaths are in the double digits, they’ve learned to face the other way. Just keep walking. Just keep up the pace. Naturally, there are moments when the men fall behind trying to save their companions – slowed down from holding their friends upright as they die from exhaustion and crumbling bones.
As horrifying as each death was, comparing The Long Walk to Squid Game, or even director Francis Lawrence’s own The Hunger Games, the level of attachment to the characters felt somewhat fragile. Despite Squid Game being more theatrical and cartoonish in its set design and costumes, we get to know the characters more, even just in the first episode, often through subtleties like how they act when they’re on their own. Although when it eventually becomes clearer why Ray and Pete are risking their lives, it’s a bit easier to put ourselves in their shoes.
Early on, we learn that the walk is being broadcast to the public, but we rarely see how people on the outside are reacting to it. We stay very close to a select few characters, as they fast track friendships, creating a slight disconnect from the world that led them here. I desperately wanted to know, who is watching the long walk? Who is sickened by it? And who is entertained? Then I realised I could ask myself that question, as someone watching right to the bitter end, struggling to look away, and wondering how far it is from becoming reality one day.
