From The Pit Of Despair- Volume 1: Revolutionary Road
Written: Jul 16 '09 (Updated Aug 14 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: The look, Kate Winslet and Michael Shannon
Cons: Leo and a lost message. Oh and did I mention it's staggeringly depressing?
The Bottom Line: If you don't want to read a review over 1500 words long then go away. I've been gone for a while, I have a lot to say.
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| shmoo1's Full Review: Revolutionary Road |
Warning: Spoilers run rampant in this piece of work
My writing over the past year has been sporadic at best and completely absent at worst. Last night, while watching my now year old son wander the house like either a ship board drunk or some unspeakable monster that should have an angry mob of little people (the toys… not the Roloffs) chase him with pitchforks and torches, I tried to think of an excuse.
I couldn’t. Well not a good one anyway. There is always work, always family, always places to see and people to go… always anything that could distract me from this, but the truth is plain and simple. I fell out of the habit of writing.
For someone who loves to write, that is almost inexcusable. You see folks, those who have hung with me over the few years that I’ve been sticking my head through the epi-porthole know that I don’t do this because I think my opinion is all that hot. I don’t do it to push people towards or detract them from any particular product… people tend to buy what they want anyway and make up their own minds. I do it, because I enjoy writing, and I enjoy reading what I write. I also enjoy when others enjoy reading what I write.
So I come back, head bowed low in humility, the wandering Shmoo who comes and goes like some errant Uncle who’s presence does nothing but wind up the kids, and hope that over the next little while I can build my readership back up.
To start things off, I thought I would review a trio of films that truly depressed me. It will be my Pit of Despair series. For some reason, as with my One Star reviews, I like to do things in three’s. It just seems right to me.
Has anyone else noticed the latest trend in films seems to be utter despair? No, I don’t mean The Wrestler which is just about some dude who couldn’t live with growing old or Tyson who got no sympathy from me since he spent the entire movie contradicting himself and mourning the few years where he was actually a decent guy, I mean films that just left you miserable. Films where, after they were over, you wanted to draw a long hot bubble bath, plug in your lap top and sit down in the suds to twitter one last tweet.
Why is this?
Anyway, this was an opportunity that I just couldn’t pass up and I will go one step further and urge all who read this to contribute to the Pit Of Despair. It’s not a write off… I haven’t been around enough to garner the mustard for that, but simply a request. Write about something that truly and completely left you empty and soulless.
But keep it fun and upbeat.
I’ll post any that are brought to my attention. I’ve chosen 3 movies, but you can do anything; a book, the final episode of Six Feet Under, that crappy President’s Choice Best Ever Lasagna, an all expense paid 2 week vacation in Darfur…hell, it could even be a vibrant, inflatable, rubber tub toy if it’s particularly sad or depressing.
I look forward to reading them, I hope that you enjoy what I can give and maybe, while being bombarded with our collective cavalcade of misery, we can bring each other a small amount of merriment.
So we begin.
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
Attention: For all of you who have ever thought you were a unique and precious snowflake, that the shackles of every day life were something you would easily avoid, that you were special and destined for great things; Newsflash, you were wrong. Now give your head a shake, stop screwing around and get back to work. I guarantee you that there are several thousand guys out there right now that would give their left nut for your job.
I find the release of this film very timely and don’t think there was anything accidental about it. Author and columnist Peggy Noonan recently tossed out the sound bite: “For 30 years the self-esteem movement told the young they're perfect in every way. It's yielding something new in history: an entire generation with no proper sense of inadequacy." Now, she was talking specifically about Sarah Palin and what a freaking joke that was (no offense) but the truth rings out. I am part of that generation. Luckily (or unluckily) I was raised by a man who made sure that I had an appropriate sense of inadequacy but I look around at my peers and realize “Good God… they think the sun rises and sets out of their bums.” I of course didn’t use the word bums, but epi-land doesn’t like my particular wording some times.
Anyway, I better get on with this. I’m almost 800 words in and haven’t really talked about the movie yet.
Descent In To HumDrumity:
Set post WW2, a 20 something Frank Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio) meets April (Kate Winslet) at a party and they hit it off immediately. She has dreams of becoming an actress and he is exciting because he has been to countries that she has only fantasized about. They marry and become “The Perfect Couple”, the ones who everybody else elevate on a pedestal and attempt to emulate. They move in to the perfect house, in the perfect neighborhood and have the perfect friends. They are so well thought of that their realtor, Helen Givings (Kathy Bates), brags to all around her about them and does what she can to become part of their lives.
The problem is that both Frank and April are becoming more and mare dissatisfied with the conformity of their lives. April has given up her dreams of acting due to a lack of talent on even an amateur level and Frank is stuck working in what he sees as a go nowhere job for ten hours a day at an early technology company, akin to IBM in the 50's. His father dredged away for 20 years at the same company while it sucked the life out of him. Frank isn’t inspired to succeed and April is feeling that their time to make a difference of any sort is slipping away. They start to bicker and Frank’s rages become larger until you feel that he will snap at any moment and start beating the hell out of her.
But, the façade of their perfection is kept up to those around them. Everyone still thinks them the poster couple of the fifties society.
Frank sinks deeper and has an affair with a new member of the stenography pool on his thirtieth birthday. When he arrives home, thinking that no-one has remembered, he is greeted by his wife and children who have a cake and an idea. April urges Frank to cash in everything they own, quit his job and have the family move to France (a country that Frank has always wanted to re-visit) where Frank can think about what he truly wants to do. They will live off their savings and April will get a well paying secretarial job and support them.
Frank doesn’t exactly jump at the idea, but warms up to it quickly until he says yes and they set the wheels in motion. They tell a few of their closest friends about their plans and are met with almost the same reaction across the board… “Are you nuts?”
The one exception is Helen Givings’ son John (Michael Shannon). John was a brilliant mathematician who suffered a complete breakdown and is now looked on by the psychiatric community as deeply disturbed. His internal sense of appropriateness seems completely broken and he asks questions about anything he wants and responds to others with perfect honesty. He is the one person who can de-rail a seemingly completely logical train of thought with the simple question, “why?” much to his mother’s horror. He’s also the one person who applauds Frank’s and April’s decision to break free and actually live. The two take an instant liking to him, whether due to his lone support or because of his ability to say what they have always wanted to.
Since Frank no longer cares about the repercussions of screwing up at work, he starts making decisions that are looked at as innovative and gutsy and the executives take notice of him. The marriage, which had hit some rocky ground, mends itself with incredible speed and April and Frank are truly happy again for the first time in years.
Then April becomes pregnant and Frank receives an offer for a promotion and a raise at work.
April, offers to abort the child and goes so far as to buy a device to do it at home which is described as safe, so long as the home abortion is performed in the first trimester. Frank talks her out of it and re-assures her that they can be happy anywhere and that he will make sure they are happy where they are. They decide to stay put.
Their lives fall apart. John Givings thinks them weak and pathetic for their choice and has no problem telling them, going so far as to offer sympathy to their un-born child for the choice of his parents. The fighting picks up again as if it had never ended, April has an affair with the husband of her best friend, who has always worshipped her, “I hate you’s” are tossed around and finally, April runs from the house in to the woods to be alone and think. When she returns, her spirit has obviously been destroyed but she appears quiet and subservient.
At the end of the movie, tragedy hits, the perfect neighborhood is left and we see a momentary shot of Frank as a broken and haunted man.
The loss of the couple is such a shock that those left behind can only seem to handle it in two ways. Their best friends make a pact never to talk about them again and Helen starts bad mouthing them to her clients… much to her husband’s disgust.
A Justification For Three Out Of Five:
I am really not sure how this film became as praised as it was, or why it ended up on so many top ten lists for last year. It had its bright points but there were some inherent flaws that really took away from it for me.
First of all, the movie seems to lose the message that the book was trying to convey. When Richard Yates wrote it in 1962, he was serving up an indictment to conformity. He basically stated that the adventurous US spirit came to a death in the 50’s when everyone had to wear the same clothes, have the same toys and live the same life. It is meant to exalt one’s dreams and give the populace a good swift kick in the pants. For what ever reason, the movie has the opposite effect that Yates intended. It basically says that you can either deal with your real life, the life you have created for yourself, or you can keep your head in the clouds and live an unrealistic dream. However, when that dream doesn’t come true, it just may crush you.
Secondly, I was really disappointed with DiCaprio. In the last ten years he has impressed me more and more with each passing film. I think it was Gangs Of New York that first caught my attention and from then on he just went up hill. As much as I thought he stunk in Titanic, every film that he has done with Scorsese has been masterful and I think he’ll have a few Oscar’s on his shelf before his career ends. However his rage in this film was ham handed and when he is left unchecked in his anger his voice keeps going up and up until the man disappears and the little boy returns. His anger scenes reminded me of his rage in Man In The Iron Mask which I found distracting and unnecessary. We’ve seen him seethe with rage and it is much more effective and scary than when he flies off the handle and throws a tantrum. He’s angry a lot in this movie and it gets old fast.
Kathy Bates was typecast in this role and she’s been much better in even her TV work. It felt like the Director Sam Mendes wanted a Titanic reunion.
Having said all this, there are positives as well. The look of the film is spot on. The color is washed out of the job and the lives, drenching everything in shades of boring grey, until rays of light pop through the kitchen window from time to time, bringing moments of effervescence to the film. Kate Winslet was scary good and deserved the recognition she got. Watching her gave me chills at times.
Best of the best? Michael Shannon, the insane fool who is the only one who makes sense. Seeing him in this ensured that I will go out of my way to see him in other work as well. Everything about him, his look, his voice, his cadence, will throw you off balance until you realize that it’s the other folks who aren’t quite right in the head and not him. If the rest of the cast and the audience are all floating down a river, he is the one who is paddling against the current and dashing the weak minded on the rocks.
However, despite the positives, the negatives forced me to hack two stars from the tally.
Oh, that and my wife. She cried for about half an hour after this film was over. Sobbed uncontrollably on the couch and not even the dog could cheer her up. As far as I’m concerned anything that makes my wife cry (especially if it’s on purpose) shall feel my wrath.
Take that Revolutionary Road! Thanks for dragging misery and pain in to my happy abode.
Now be gone with you and never darken my door again.
Next up? How about a never seen dead body for a main character?
For All The Films Found Deep In The Pit Of Despair, Please See:
1
2
3
4
Recommended:
No
Movie Mood: Serious Movie
Viewing Method: Studio Screening/Premiere
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Nothing
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Epinions.com ID:
shmoo1
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Location: Milton On. Canada
Reviews written: 103
Trusted by: 66 members
About Me:Vote Kingfish/ Shmoo in 2012 'Cuz A Shmoo In The Hand...
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