In the film, The Road, a father (played by Viggo Mortenson) guides a son (Kodi Smit-Mcphee) in a post-apocalyptic landscape practically devoid of life and humanity. In the end, the father dies, having taken the son as far as he could and shaped him the best he could to both survive in that world, but also retain a sense of humanity--to be one of the good guys who are: "carrying the fire," as they state several times throughout the film.
Right after that very emotional scene, the boy encounters a family: a man, a woman and a dog, who offers to take him in, where the incredibly bleak film ends on a somewhat more hopeful but wary note. The way it's portrayed, they make it somewhat ambiguous whether he can trust the family or not. In my opinion,