Movie Inspires

04.03.2010

I watched Sam Mendes’s movie Revolutionary Road last night and I hate having high expectations for movies because inevitably I’ll be disappointed. I loved, loved, loved his Away We Go movie; can’t get enough and can’t recommend it highly enough (it is with the wonderfully talented Maya Rudolph and – to me- surprisingly comedic John Krasinski). But Revolutionary Road…??...meh.

I had such high expectations for the movie because I thought I’d be able to greatly identify with it. With great expectations from their lives, a husband and wife move to the suburbs with their 2 kids only to realize that the cookie-cutter version of suburbia isn’t for them at all as they witness their lives and marriage fall apart. Now having written all that out, I suppose it sounds strange to hear me say that I had such high expectations of that movie or that I’d identify with it. Well, for starters, I didn’t think you could go wrong with Sam Mendes, Kate Winslet and Leonardo di Caprio. But, big names don’t really mean much if you don’t have a GOOD STORY! And I don’t think Revolutionary Road’s script was written well.

Secondly, and here’s where I thought I could relate, the idea of “the ‘burbs”. Rob and I have often talked about how we don’t want to move to the suburbs where all the homes are the same and there’s some ridiculous rule that you can’t paint your shutters any color other than white or white. OK, maybe cream is allowed, but you get what I mean. I want a safe, diverse and education-oriented neighborhood but one that values independent thinking and acceptance.

But the movie did bring out a theme that I’ve written about and one that terrifies me. Kate Winslet’s character studied to be an actress but she got married, got pregnant and they moved to the suburbs where she could be the dutiful wife and her husband could work at a job he hated.

This kind of an existence really scares me. Granted, the movie’s set in 1955, but I see this kind of living all around me. We can’t all be celebrities, bank CEOs, or astronauts. I get that and I’m not striving to really be any of those things. I’m just so terrified of waking up one day without realizing how many years have passed and feeling miserable and regretful just like those characters in the movie. Because how do you teach your kid(s) to be happy if you yourself are not?