Revolutionary Road

We watched this movie a week ago. Starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, in their first pairing since Titanic , as Frank and April Wheeler a young suburban couple in nineteen fifties suburban Connecticut.

However not all is as tranquil as it seems. April dreamed and still dreams of being an actress but sees that dream ending. Frank works as a salesman in the same office machine company his father does but feels bored, nameless and beaten down.

The Wheelers are good friends with their real estate agent played by Kathy Bates. They encourage her to visit along with her troubled son, who had recently been in a mental hospital for his " nervous condition." However her son John is verbally combative and with no social skills makes very confrontational statements. This unsettles many.

As we watched the movie well in we still did not know where it was going. The movie was not great. The characters are self absorbed but not unlike many people both then and now living the normal life, achieving much of the suburban dream but find themselves unfulfilled. The lengths that they think of going to to bypass it seem extreme but perhaps that is society;s way to prevent chaos. I admit I have thought how nice it would be to live in Europe, I suspect if all who thought of it did so the world would be a much less staid place. Society despite what it purports to admire is an influence on staid and boring lives.

Kate Winslet is that rare actress who can look awful and then incredibly beatiful and sensual in different scenes. Her face is a canvas for any emotion. DiCaprio still looks like he could be bagging groceries but he is an accomplished actor and he does well in this role. This movie succeeds at it's goals. If one is inclined to think then this movie will make one do so. The question is how many people want to go to a movie to contemplate the death of the soul to the conformity of the American Dream.

An interesting movie. Not a great one however.