When Francis Lawrence’s The Long Walk hits the 2025 movie calendar on September 12, expect to see some visceral reactions from those who take a trip to the theater. Already we’ve heard from people who can’t make it through the trailer without crying, and first reactions from the screenings described an “emotional wallop.” But beyond the “nauseating” experience that critics are promising, they’re also blown away by one David Jonsson’s performance.
The Stephen King book-to-screen adaptation centers around Cooper Hoffman’s Raymond Garraty, one of 50 young men who enter a contest to see who can walk the longest. Those who slow down are executed until just one remains. While Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son is being praised for his performance, our own Eric Eisenberg says David Jonsson has “never been better.” He rates the movie 4.5 out of 5 stars and writes in CinemaBlend’s review of The Long Walk:
Hoffman’s work is powerful, and I could highlight outstanding aspects of all the film’s performances (special shout out to Judy Greer, who, in limited screen time as Ray’s mom, brought me to tears), but I can guarantee that the turn that everyone is going to be talking about coming out of the movie is David Jonsson as Peter McVries. … As the walk continues, Peter is revealed as the soul of the film – a good kid who comes from nothing and makes an honest go at perpetual optimism in a life of cruelty – and Jonsson’s emotional journey is perfection.
Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting agrees, calling both Cooper Hoffman (Licorice Pizza) and David Jonsson (Rye Lane, Alien: Romulus) rising stars. Overall, the critic gives the upcoming horror movie 4 out of 5 skulls, saying of the actors:
The pair becomes the beating heart of this grim story, carrying each other through the hardest stretches and challenging each other’s philosophies as things continue to get worse. Yet it’s Jonsson’s unflappable cheer as a sage champion of hope, despite a lifetime of disappointment and pain, that threatens to steal the entire film and your heart in the process.
Jacob Oller of AV Club gives The Long Walk a B, saying that for as “bloody and upsetting” as the movie is, it boils down a 100-minute walk-and-talk between some of the best young actors out there — particularly Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson. Oller continues:
Hoffman warmly leads the pack—especially when he taps a deep, personal well during a monologue about his character’s late father—but it’s Jonsson, with a breezy range and compellingly nuanced expressions, who proves himself a movie star. There’s no room for anyone in the cast to hide; they’re all just steadily heading towards Jo Willems’ camera, trying to find the truth in the core of some of King’s traditionally awkward dialogue.
Clint Worthington of RogerEbert.com rates the movie 3 out of 4 stars, noting that The Long Walk has a very deserved R-rating for its splattercore killings that never get less haunting as the body count rises. Of the actors in question, the critic writes:
Hoffman and Jonsson make for such an invigorating pair, kids who maintain their moral center in an environment where kids would more likely behave like Barkovitch (taunting and sabotaging his fellow competitors so they fail and die), and building a small community of survivors around them whom they can lean on in times of exhaustion. Their backstories are thin, and revealed only through vague glimpses of dialogue (or what little we get of Judy Greer as Garraty’s worried mother). Still, the strength of the performances gives those gaps a mystique that wallpapers over their perceived thinness.
Gregory Nussen of Deadline agrees with the above critics when it comes to the jobs done by the leading cast members, but overall Nussen says The Long Walk is “entirely too heavy.” Its “nauseating” message is such that it “hits us with an anvil when a hammer would do.” He continues:
Hoffman and Jonsson are both brilliant, vulnerable in their humanity in the face of such unfathomable conditions, but their repartee does seem forced and often maudlin. They are also, catastrophically, the only two people here that seem like people. Most of the other contestants are readable only as proxies for the indispensability of the youth. None of them serve much purpose, except to tug at our heartstrings.
There’s no question that The Long Walk is going to be a tough watch, but for those who can stomach it — and this red-band clip might be a good litmus test for that — it sounds like the actors have really put in a performance worth watching. The movie hits theaters on Friday, September 12.
