Marraige, at times, feels like a war. After the veil of newlywed bliss falls away, we gradually see our spouses in an exposing light that didn't seem to exist before. Odd habits, mildly annoying mannerisms, character traits that you thought would magically change once you said your "I do's." Eventually, this leads to conflicts, and in an argument where you know all of your "enemy's" secrets, the fight can get quite ugly. When we overcome our natural instincts to protect our pride and insecurities, these conflicts can bring out the best of us. But more often it draws out the basest feelings that hide in our soul. It's this sort of personal understanding that makes watching Revolutionary Road so painful.
In the original book the film was adapted from, Richard Yates succintly sums up the sheer ugliness of marital discord in describing a fight the main protaganists Frank and Alice Wheeler have in the opening chapter:
Then the fight went out of control. It quivered their arms and legs and wrenched their faces into shapes of hatred, it urged them harder and deeper into each other's weak points, showing them cunning ways around each other's strongholds and quick chances to switch tactics, feint, and strike again. In the space of a gasp for breath it sent their memories racing back over the years for weapons to rip the scabs off old wounds; it went on and on.The entire movie feels something like this. I felt myself almost wincing throughout just waiting for the whole disastrous relationship to finally fall apart. It's like watching a race knowing the mechanic sabotaged the car, or like a horror movie except the terror comes from wondering what issues Frank and Alice are dealing with that will ring too true to real life and reflect something I've faced in my own marital life.
The Wheelers are portrayed as the perfect American couple. Frank with his comfortable city desk job, Alice with her comfortable homemaker role, two cute children, perfect picture-window house--all a facade hiding a much more troubled pair who feel trapped in an ordinary world of suburban conformity. The unfortunate thing is that they can't come to the honest conclusion that perhaps they aren't as extraordinary as they think they are. And maybe they aren't as in love as they think they are. Real life comes too quickly for them. An accidental pregnancy forces them to marry early. Practicality forces them to move out of the excitement of the city and into the suburbs. Even when they finally decide to escape their mediocre life and move to Paris, reality still seems to get in their way. It's a universal obstacle we all face, coming to grips with the loss of the freedom and fun of married life before the realities of economics and responsibility set in.
The movie actually doesn't offer much in the way of redeeming qualities for either of the Wheelers, and it's a bit of clever casting, I think, that gets us to actually empathize with them. After all, what love story do most of us know better than Kate and Leo from Titanic? It's like we go into the theater already feeling like we know their backstory and all the romance that led up to their pairing. All the better to get us watching so that it can all be torn apart. Kate Winslet won the Golden Globe for her role last night as the wife coming to the realization that her life isn't what she wanted it to be, and I can understand why. Even Leonardo DiCaprio, who has steadily improved his acting skills with each new movie he makes, comes out with a very believable interpretation of a guy with lofty words trying to hide a fear of inadequacy. The adaptation as a whole seems to stay true to the source material, and Sam Mendes direction seems flawless.
This is definitely not a movie to see if you're having major marital problems. It paints a rather bleak picture about marraige, and gives us no glimmer of hope anything good that comes out of that bond. I left Revolutionary Road feeling like I had seen perhaps one of the best movies of 2009, yet at the same time felt almost afraid to discuss much about it with my spouse afterwards because perhaps too much of it hit too close to home. It's an ugly movie--and oddly I mean that in a very good way.
2 comments:
Not to sound like a counselor, but it it the times that you are most afraid to discuss that you must discuss with your spouse.
And Dangerously Cheesy? You don't hand out too many of those, so something tells me that it is not only a must but a necessity that you talk about the movie with your other half.
On another note, we should start tagging our flavorings with the actual rating. That way, I can go back and see exactly how many movies have received a Dangerously Cheesy.
Oh, don't get the wrong idea. I said "almost afraid to discuss." We've talked about it, and I'm sure we'll talk about it some more--it's still resonating three days later.
Tagging the flavorings is a good idea. I'll try going back through and doing that.
Post a Comment