Disclaimer: I didn’t set out looking for an anti-Valentine’s Day movie to watch. I don’t feel you need a special day to remind you to show love since you should be doing it every day anyways. The only real issues I have with Valentine’s Day is the commerciality of it (sort of how Christmas can seem it is only about the shopping and not about generosity and goodwill) and how restaurants turn into amateur night that weekend (similar to my feelings about New Year’s Eve and St. Patrick’s Day). I wanted to watch this movie because I heard it was good, NOT because I have something against Valentine’s Day. I just saw this movie out of coincidence. I could have seen it in August and would have felt the same way, so please withhold your hate e-mails and comments. Thanks.
So yesterday afternoon, I found myself looking at movies I haven’t watched but have been meaning to watch and saw that Revolutionary Road was available on demand. I had read good things about the movie and remembered that Kate Winslet got some fairly good reviews that year for her work in the movie, but was overshadowed by her own work in The Reader, which she did a spectacular job in as well. Leonardo DiCaprio was also in it and I’m about 50/50 on his stuff. I liked him in Inception, Catch Me If You Can, and The Departed, didn’t like him in The Aviator and Gangs of New York (I actually thought this movie sucked).
Revolutionary Road was also directed by Sam Mendes, who did American Beauty (one of my favorite movies), so I thought the two hour investment was worthwhile. This story surrounds a young couple that quickly falls in love with visions of an extraordinary life together. But they quickly find out that life doesn’t necessarily have to be so extraordinary.
Now, if you are familiar with American Beauty, you are aware of how Mendes essentially uses that movie as an affront to the entire idea of suburbia. And this movie closely follows many of the same themes. Marriage doesn’t always lead to bliss. The seven-year itch does exist (I don’t feel like this disclosure is a huge spoiler since it happens pretty early in the movie). Life can be ordinary, pedestrian, and boring. Money doesn’t lead to happiness. Sometimes the people that seem the craziest are the sanest. Mendes does the same thing in American Beauty by making the only normal people in the movie the gay couple (played by Scott Bakula and Sam Robards) that is the welcoming committee for Colonel Frank Fitts (Chris Cooper) when his family moves into the neighborhood.
Like Lester and Carolyn Burnham (Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening’s characters in American Beauty), Frank (DiCaprio) and April (Winslet) Wheeler feel trapped by their life in suburbia and yearn to regain the joie de vivre that they had when they were younger and fell in love. Looking at what they go thru during the span of the movie, it seems Mendes just hates the institution of marriage and domesticated life in general. But this quote tells how he feels, “All my films are linked by similar concerns, if you look below the surface. They're all about one or more people who are lost and trying to find a way through.”
I thought of this Andrew Wyeth painting after I read that quote.
Photo Credit: http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O:AD:E:6464&page_number=1&template_id=1&sort_order=1
One thing that I am looking forward to is how Sam Mendes will handle Bond 23. All of his movies (with the exception of Away We Go which I haven’t seen), are pretty dark so it will be nice to see how James Bond will be treated and if it will be closer to Ian Fleming’s version of the character.
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