Not So Revolutionary Road

We tramped through the snow yesterday to go see a movie. It was a way of getting out of the cabin and out of our heads. Sometimes it is good to just change things up.

We saw "Revolutionary Road." I wanted to see it after I read this post from Kris Cahill.

I agree it is quite good. Sam Mendes definitely knows how to make a powerful, totally engaging movie. Remember "American Beauty?" These two movies have a lot in common. Great performances, masterful cinematography.

Both films show us lives of quiet and not so quiet desperation. People who have made choices and then find they can't really live with the choices they have made.

"This is not my beautiful wife, this is not my beautiful house." - David Byrne

The big difference between the two movies: in "American Beauty," the children decide to live their own "picture," they exercise their "free will" to take a new path. In "Revolutionary Road," conformity wins the day. The only out seems to be a certain kind of death for all concerned.

There is one exception in "Revolutionary Road." One glorious exception. The Crazy Guy. The math genius emptied by too many electrical shocks. He is the one the Lovely Carla and I identified with. He is the truth-teller. And sometimes truth sits like a big old atomic bomb in the middle of the pantry.

Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet are superb. The last time we saw these two together they were on a sinking ship in the Atlantic. Here they are on a sinking ship in suburbia.

And the Crazy Guy is played by Michael Shannon. Michael almost steals the show. No, scratch that, Michael Shannon steals the show. Michael by the way is a Chicago guy. I've seen him do some great work ("Bug,"and "The Persecution of Arnold Pestch"), with A Red Orchid Theatre on Wells. He is a great talent. Strange dude. Incredible actor.

Anyway, the movie is kind of funny and kind of sad too. I don't think it's a comedy, or it's a comedy with tragic overtones. Or a tragedy with comedic overtones. We all make choices. And we have to live with them. And every choice we make means there are others that will not be realized. It's a conundrum don't you think? We all are responsible, sometimes it's like Jean Paul Satre on freaking steriods we are even responsible for the things we're not responsible for. That is a heavy existential burden. Or then again maybe not.

We all make choices every single day. To not choose is a choice too. And the choices add up to a life.