Revolutionary Road is a rubbish movie about first world problems

You apparently missed the whole point of the movie, OP.

The movie is an adaptation of Richard Yates' novel first published in 1961. If it seems worlds away from how we live now, that's because it is. However, the central themes still exist now, especially against the backdrop of a further disintegrating American Dream.

I loved this movie, OP. Nothing is what it appears to be, and that's one of the reasons it was so good. No fairy-tale ending, lots of "mid-century modern"-style angst. I especially loved the narration.

Too bad it went over your head.

I've read the book, it was good. I saw it as being about how they wanted to be something else. The wife wanted to be a great actress. The husband felt destined for great/unique things. Yet instead they ended up in this white picket fence regular life. And it kind of sent them insane. I see this as a theme from the 50s. Poets like Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath seem to embody that kind of dichotomy that sent them mad.

I enjoyed Kate Winslet in it.

The couple were products of the 1950s, when middle class Americans moved to the suburbs and were expected to conform to the American ideal of happily married husband and wife with 2.5 kids, living in a pretty tract house with green lawn and white picket fence. They had all that, yet they were bored out of their minds, especially the wife, who had career goals, but put them on hold to fulfill her role as wife and mother. She felt trapped, and many women who felt that way slowly went mad or were ostracized from this society if she deviated from these expectations. Some husbands put their wives in mental hospitals for thinking outside that little box.

When husband had his little pipe dream about moving the family to France, wife was relieved and was starting to finally feel liberated. But when he chickened out, the poor wife saw her life as good as over.

Having DiCaprio and Winslet in those roles completely twisted that movie into something else. Brought millions of eyeballs to a movie that general audiences were bound to dislike, not understand, and be bored to shit with. Its wildly unsatisfying and the characters aren't particularly sympathetic or moving. In short, it's challenging material and casting the leads of America's number one popcorn soap opera action movie of all time did not work for the material.

I walked out of the movie. Even Leo DiCaprio could make me stay.

The scenery was chewed to bits.

So, it should be noted that former high school teacher and long term serial groomer Blake Bailey, who was discussed extensively in threads earlier this year, built his literary biography reputation on Richard Yates, practically recovering him from obscurity, before writing the Philip Roth biography that seems to have lead to the ruination of his career due to being called out for #metoo.

The movie wasn't as good as the book, but it still featured good performances.

Here is the NYT review of the Blake Yates biography. I used to live in Westchester not far from Scarborough on Hudson, a neighborhood of Briar Cliff Manor. Revolutionary Road is the beautiful little quiet suburban street that runs parallel to the main road between it and the Hudson River and seems as idyllic as can be, but of course all places have the potential for darkness. Yates’ mother taught sculpture to the private school students who included the school’s founder Frank Vanderlip, one of the era’s most wealthy men who is little known today. It was the location of one of the first Montessori school in the US. Yates and his mother lived in a house on the property, that eventually John Cheever would live and write in as well. Reading the review of the biography you see he had nothing but contempt for his mother and her artistic yearnings and it’s easily to see him getting his revenge on her by writing and killing off a character he models after her.

"The wife wanted to be a great actress. The husband felt destined for great/unique things. Yet instead they ended up in this white picket fence regular life. And it kind of sent them insane."

Except I couldn't feel sorry for them, because they chose to buy the damn house in the suburb of their own free wills. They aren't tragic characters, they're just people who made a choice and didn't like the results, and didn't have the sense to make a change for the better once they realized they had a problem.

Face it, this is just another "suburbia sucks, my upbringing in the suburbs sucked" story from a white writer who grew up in a prosperous suburb. I mean, I grew up in a prosperous suburb and hated it, but even *I* have lost patience with writers who think the world is interested in how much life in that prosperous suburb sucked! I don't bore people with that shit now that I know what real problems are, you should get the same clue.

R13, the thing is that people don't tend to see their situation in absolute terms i.e. whether they have food, shelter, basic health care when that's all there is. It's kind of like Maslow's triangle - when you have those things, you need other things too to be happy - such as meaning, purpose, connections. Part of human nature is always to be never be entirely happy with things - otherwise there'd be no progress at all.

i love this movie because it does give a good psychological breakdown of the thin veneers people with perfect lives have

when i was 20 i thought “so sad for them”

and now at 30-i’m like someone take my withered hole and make me your housewife i’m tired -i’d love to cook but hire a cleaning person and clamor onto my business husband about the bake sale and Junifeighers clarinet recital while he bangs a rentboy to let out his frustrations

it’s like oh how sad that didn’t become famous! also europe is such a dream alt life for americans but many europeans are depressed af and equally unhappy with many things in their life/country

the veneer of anything wears away and you’re always left with yourself-do what makes you happy but europe won’t solve your woes......

I thought that Kate and Leo were excellent in this, and I don't usually care for them. I thought Kate deserved her Oscar for this but she shameless promoted for The Reader which paid off.

Michael Shannon and David Harbour (hot in this) were both very good in supporting roles (Shannon was nominated).

Real estate agent Kathy Bates was very good as Michael Shannon's mother. And, yes, David Harbour was really hot.

DiCaprio fit right at home as a depressed and repressed man during the 1950s, his hidden desires bubbling like soup in a pressure cooker.

Well no, R14. I'm fully aware of how Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs affects human happiness, and how once you satisfy a person's basic needs then they'll usually find some non-survival issue to be unhappy about.

Which is why I stand by what I said, this is the story of two people who didn't like where a choice they made led them, and who didn't have the sense or the courage to even try to fix their lives. I know it's supposed to be a damning indictment of American social conformity, but really, it's more about people failing to cope with what life throws their way or the choices they've made. These are people who at every point, had the money, brains, health, and opportunity to do things differently, but they didn't.

Thanks, OP, for reminding me about this movie. I'm watching it again right now.

I forgot Kathryn Hahn was in it. If you don't like Kate or Leo, the rest of the cast is great...

I forgot all about this movie.

The film sort of played like a watered down Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Good film though. The whole point of it is most people go their lives thinking they have to do A B C and D and they will be fulfilled, likely passed down from their parents, especially in that era, instead of following what makes you happy, regardless of the money. The scene where Leo is in a sea of hats, just one of the working sheep, says it all. The score is haunting and excellent. Shannon deserved the nomination for the crazy, voice of conscience.

Can we talk about how phenomenal the sound track was. Thomas Newman was brilliant for having composed it.

[quote] Revolutionary Road is a rubbish movie about first world problems

Your point being?

I and most of us here live in the First World, even if you don't.

This is one of the few LD movies I actually liked.

R24 I bought the soundtrack for that primary few bars of the theme, beautiful.

I have not seen the film

The novel, OP, is breaking down the assumption that the 1950s good life was all - or even anything - like it was cracked up to be.

[R27] Agreed and IMO the sound track brought that movie to life. It gave it heart and meaning.

I actually choke up sometimes upon listening.

I know I’m a sissy but damn that score is beautiful.