Pop Culture Happy Hour - The Long Walk And What's Making Us Happy

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

The new film The Long Walk is Stephen King meets The Hunger Games. It takes place in a dystopian America in which one young man from each state competes in a televised event in which they must walk at a steady pace … until they can’t. And when they can’t, they’re killed. It stars Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson and Mark Hamill. (This episode was recorded on September 4, 2025.)Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopcultureSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Just a heads up, we recorded this episode last week, before both the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk and a school shooting in Colorado. We discuss gun violence in this episode, so we wanted to give you a warning. The new film The Long Walk takes place in a dystopian America in which one young man from each state competes in a televised event in which they must walk at a steady pace until they can't. And when they can't, they're killed. The one who survives gets unimaginable wealth and one wish. It's literally Stephen King meets The Hunger Games. It's based on the first novel King ever wrote, and it's directed by Francis Lawrence,

who knows his way around dystopian films starring children, having directed a bunch of the Hunger Games movies. I'm Glenn Weldon, and joining me today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is Kristen Mineser. She co-hosts The Nightly on Hatch Plus. Hey, Kristen. Hi, Glenn. Hello.

Also with us is freelance music and culture journalist Rihanna Cruz. Hey, Rihanna. Hey, Glenn. Happy to be here. Happy to have you. In The Long Walk, Cooper Hoffman, plays Ray, a young man selected to compete in The Long Walk, a deadly annual event that pits 50 young men against each other for survival. He's got his own reasons for competing.

His competitors, some of whom become close friends, some of whom become bitter rivals, include Peter, an endlessly compassionate, wise beyond his years young man, played by David Johnson. Come on, man. Let's be musketeers. How to f*** who are we going to be musketeers? There's four of us. Come on now. We stick together to where all that's left. How about that? Off one. One for all. And again, I need to hear a louder.

Off one. And one for all. It's all overseen by The Major, a sinister military official, played by Mark Hamill. As the long walk proceeds, the boys falter and are murdered one by one by one. Friendships form and literally die over and over again. The long walk is in theaters now. Rihanna, what do you think? Did you go on this long walk?

I did, and I frankly loved it. I think it would be a slam dunk. no matter what for me, considering the concept, because my favorite genre and movie is like, person stuck in place, forced to do thing, where they die. This is a formidable entry into that canon. And I love when a B-level genre movie, right, is like written and marketed like a 10-Poll A-list movie. And I think this is the case.

And usually is the case with most Stephen King adaptations. But I thought the Long Walk was really engaging. I was wrapped the entire time. Well-paced, no pun intended. I thought it was really great. I enjoyed it, but this is my bag. So it was a good entry into that bag. All right. Kristen, was this your bag? It should have been. I loved the premise. I loved how simple it was. The act of walking until you can't walk anymore. I'm an avid walker, a walking enthusiast. I have walked up to 40 miles a day before. I've walked to the airport. I've walked five New York. in a day. I am a very avid walker. I love walking. So the idea of one of my favorite hobbies being turned into a way to die, yes, I am there for it. This sounds fantastic. But I also felt it didn't go far enough or deep enough. And some of the characters were more caricature than

human to me. I think I would have felt differently if this was marketed not as a tent pole, you know, movie, but if it was instead marketed as YA and if it was released as a PG film rather than a rated R film, I think I may have gone in with different expectations. You know, I would have thought, oh, this is a great teen movie. But because it was marketed the way it was, I think I just expected more of it. Okay. You know, sometimes we arrange ourselves along a spectrum. Sometimes we don't. Today is a spectrum day. I hated this a whole hell of a lot. So I'm going to say my piece. And then I'm going to sit back because I think listeners want to hear a little bit more nuanced takes than I'm prepared to bring. I found this a ludicrously self-important, self-serious. And to call it

ham-fisted does not even begin. Like, these are some glazed, honey-baked, spiral hams. And I thought this was in the end just a howlingly failed attempt at emotional manipulation that feels like it was written by a teenager, that feels like it is juvenalia. I just thought it was embarrassing this movie, embarrassingly thin and broad at the same time. time, mostly because, you know how in war movies, there's always that one character who's the fresh-faced recruit. And he's like, hey, buddy, look at this. This is a photo of my gal back home. Oh, and her name's Betty Sue, Buddy, and she's a swell. She's a looker, right, buddy? And when I get back, I'm going to make an honest woman of a buddy, and we're going to get married, and we're going to

start a sorghum farm or whatever, because everybody loves sorghum, I don't know. And we're going to have kids, and we're going to go picnics. Oh, buddy, there's this one place. There's a willow tree and a crick and some And his face gets spun off, right? Yeah. That is every single character in what I found to be a miserable, cheaply sentimental movie. This dialogue is so bad, so waferthian, that whenever a character got murdered, I dance a little bit in my seat because it meant they were going to stop talking.

All right. So I hear you, and I really respect your take, Glenn. I think you're on to something. But what I will say is that I think your mileage may vary with the, general concept of the long walk. Okay. Right. Like, I put in my work on, like, the 2B archives, you know what I mean?

Like, I'm watching, like, absolute filth of, you know, horror, B movie, game movies, okay? And I think this movie does the archetypes, and it doesn't really reinvent the wheel, but what it does, in my opinion, it does well. And I also like Stephen King. I really love a Stephen King adaptation. This movie reminded me a lot of the mist, which I also really love the way that it's made and constructed and written. And I don't know. I think like the long walk is bleak.

And because there's so many characters, I think you have to lean into archetypes or else they all blend together. So when I was watching, the characters felt distinct. And I like, I knew them already because they're archetypal. So that when they die, it's like... oh, we're losing the sweet-eyed writer guy, you know, or we're losing the headstrong, you know, whatever, this, that, and the third. Like, it makes sense to lean into those stock character types because they're going to die so fast. You know, the whole movie is about people dying.

Like, I don't need character development. You know what I mean? Like, I don't need them to have really nuanced perspectives on the world because, they're going to get shot in the face in like 20 minutes, you know? Yeah, yeah. I hear you. I don't agree with you, but I hear you. How about you, Kristen?

I don't totally agree with you either because I think a little bit more development would have been good. We get showboating and vulnerability in waves. We just kind of get that back and forth a lot with some, you know, archetypes or I would say caricatures. And also, in addition to wanting the characters to be developed more, I think they could have done more variation with what the walking scenarios were. At one point, we get an uphill, and at two points it rains. But I think they could have done so much more. Like, when I'm doing

my very long walks, sometimes I end up in a wheat field where the grass is up to my neck. And sometimes I end up crossing over water at certain points. And I thought, oh, what would it have been like if you can't see each other anymore because the grass is so high? What would it have been like? if there was a surface that was hard to walk on. And I just think they could have gone further with a lot of this. And it stayed so simple. Oh, and I also have to say there are a few Chekhov's guns that are introduced that never go off. Oh, that bugged me.

I wanted these Chekhov's guns to do something. I mean, where the film I maybe could have gone deeper and it would have resonated a little bit with me is this film does faint toward world building. I mean, the fact that things are so bad that every kid in America wants to go on this walk. That's something. We could have dug into that. the notion that there are things you can wish for if you win and things you can't, why that might be. But even then, you know, the backstory we get of one kid is like, my dad used to read me poetry. And of course, that was forbidden.

Like, that's not enough. That's placeholder. That's first thought. We need to dig deeper if you're going to introduce it or just don't introduce it. Or we could stay here with these cardboard characters mouthing these one-dimensional summations of their personalities. I hear you on the world building, though. Yeah. Okay.

I think that maybe that's something that the movie never intends to offer, though. Right. You know, because I think the point of the movie is to focus and zero in on the concept of this walk. Like, it starts when it begins and it ends when it's over. There's no external context. There's a couple flashback scenes that appear when the character is, like, sleeping while walking, which I don't even know how that happened, but sure. And I think most of the context is built in implication.

And maybe it's like an expectation thing because, like, I don't really want world building. I want the kids to die. I don't really know how else to put it. You know what I mean? Check and check. It's like I don't really want to know the general state of the country at the time. I think it's told really well through implication. That was my issue with a lot of the Hunger Games movies is that it's too much external and not enough, like, internal gameplay.

So I think, like, you can synthesize what you want out of what they give you. You know what I mean? That's true. Well, let me ask you both this. I'm alone in my little island here of hating this movie so much because I've read a lot of reviews that call it harrowing and emotional. So, Rihanna, you're talking about, like, the gameplay, the bloodlust. did it hit you emotionally? Because in my opinion, a lot of these emotions are the cheapest, soapiest melodrama.

They don't arise out of like real events depicted. They're not real. They're knockoffs. They're team of emotions. It's melodrama for 14-year-old boys. But if this hit you, it hit you. Did it hit you? You know, I mean, I wasn't like bawling in my seat.

But, I mean, I think in terms of shock value, maybe the emotions landed for me. I think the larger melodramatic moments, I think, the larger melodramatic moments, I I was not super sold on, but I think the movie kind of compensated for that with being very stark and bleak in terms of like its gore and what they were showing. Kristen, how about you? Emotionally. I just wasn't attached enough to these characters. Like I said, it was almost like children's books where it's like you're kind of a cartoon,

almost, not a fully fledged character, which is a shame. If the characters were more fleshed out, when their flesh gets blown off. I probably would have felt something more deep. And some of my ire for this film is coming from its use or lack of use of Judy Greer. Judy Greer got done so dirty by this movie. She came on screen and me and my partner looked at each other at exactly the same time and said Judy Greer's in this movie. I love Judy Greer. I mean, in the few scenes that she has, I thought she really nailed the like desperate mother acting.

She's going to do it. She's Judy Greer. She can't not. Exactly. I also thought Kutmer Hoffman was really great. in terms of the acting. There's a few moments where he does mannerisms where he's like grabbing the straps of his backpack and he's like a spitting image of his father, Philip Seymour Hoffman. Like I was watching that and I was kind of taken aback, you know, not to compare him to his dad because I feel like people do that all the time. But he's really great and holds his own in this in my opinion. Yeah. I can't fault the acting. I can't fault the acting. I can't fault the writing in a big way. I can't fault the acting. Understood. You know, I wonder how differently we all would have felt.

if we would have gone to one of the treadmill screenings because there are screens of this movie where you literally walk at the same pace as the characters on screen. Or you're kicked out. The characters are not allowed to go any slower than three miles per hour. And I would have loved to go on to one of those screenings

where every treadmill is set at three miles per hour and maybe we would have felt differently then about the movie. Maybe. Yeah. Stopped and be kicked out. Glenn's like, have turned off the treadmill and left the theater. I think the three miles per hour is also, one, kind of like, hoofing it.

You know, it's not a lazy walk, but I'm honestly really taken aback by how these people are able to sleep while walking. I mentioned that earlier, but, like, I don't know how you could do that. I don't know how these people are pooping while walking. That really got me the whole time. I wouldn't be able to do it. let me just say that. Yeah. There's a lot of pooping.

There's not a lot of chafing. This movie should be called chafing, the movie. So much chafing. Also, none of them had proper walking shoes on. Yeah, there's also that. Maybe in this dystopian future, they no longer make hokas. I don't know. All right.

Well, we're going to take a short break. Then we'll recommend what's making us happy this week. So stick around. Now it is time for our favorite segment of this week and every week. What is making us happy this week? Rihanna, what is making you happy this week? All right. there's so much new music out in the world and it kind of overwhelms me.

And when I get overwhelmed, I turn to the radio. And lately, I've been really enjoying this channel on Sirius XM called Andy Cohen's Kiki Lounge. And it's Andy Cohen's personally created radio station where he plays everything from Madonna hits from live albums, right? Like he plays stuff from the MDNA tour next to Grateful Dead 20 minute long. jam sessions next to Aretha Franklin covers. It's really great and kind of synthesizes my music taste, where I kind of want to listen to whatever from so many genres as long as it's like gay music and it's good. And that's how I feel about Andy Cohen's Kiki Lounge.

So I recommend. That's great because gay music and good. It's a spectrum. Well, it's more a Venn diagram with two big circles and a little bit of a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you for that. That is Andy Cohen's Kiki Lounge. Thank you so much.

Kristen, how about you? What is making you happy? What's making me happy this week is a brand new book called Fever, The Complete History of Saturday Night Fever by Margo Donahue. This is a book looking back on the iconic film almost 50 years later. Yes, it has been almost 50 years. And it interviews almost all the key players, from directors to choreographers, to actors, to costume designers. It reveals everything that went wrong in the making of the film. A lot went

very, very wrong behind the scenes. It digs into the controversies. You know, all the people who took credit for teaching John Travolta how to dance, who really did teach John Travolta how to dance. The book digs into that. It's just a joy. It's great for lovers of film. It's great for lovers of music. It's great for anyone just curious about 1970s cultural history or New York history. So I highly recommend it. Again, that's fever, the complete history of Saturday Night Fever by Margo Donahue. Oh, that sounds fantastic. Thank you so much, Kristen.

What's making me happy, I think, is going to make you both happy, too, because I thought about you when it happened. The world changed on August 25th. You probably felt it. Werner is on Zagram. On August 25th, Director Werner Herzog opened an Instagram account, and it is really him. Werner Herzog, of course, is one of our greatest living directors, and perhaps more importantly in this context, one of our greatest living weirdos. And he's out here making content.

He's influencing. Not a lot so far. There's only a few posts. But this is a man who is on record is saying, nature vicious to kill us all. And his first reel is of him standing over a grill, grilling a steak the size of a mid-sized SUV is this steak. My God, it's big.

And he says, I will post about work and my everyday things. And children, his everyday things are not yours or my everyday things. So strap in. That is Werner Herzog official on Instagram. And that is what is making me happy this week. Although happiness is a muleing child's folly of distraction from culturality. Exactly. And if you want links to what we recommended, plus some more recommendations, sign up for a newsletter at npr.org slash pop culture newsletter.

And that brings us to the end of our show and possibly humanity. Anna Cruz, Christian Mainz. Thank you so much, Glenn. Thank you, Glenn and Werner. This episode was produced by Carly Rubin, Janay Morris, and Mike Katz. I've been edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy, and Her Lockeman provides our theme music,

and we are all the dancing organ-reined the monkey doing our hirky-jurkey jig of despair. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glenn Felton, and we'll see you all next week. Nature is death.