Revolutionary Road [2008]
Although set in 1950s America, I think that a big part of its success is that many people today could relate to the two main characters. The film succeeded because of its very relevant and timely message.
DiCaprio & Winslet as Frank and April Wheeler
The film was about April and Frank Wheeler, a young couple with 2 kids who believed they were meant for better and bigger things. They felt increasingly frustrated with their lives, particularly their career and their relationships.
They didn’t know what they really wanted to do with their lives so they saw hopelessness and mediocrity, and they longed to escape the humdrum.
Frank tried to cope by sleeping with a young woman from his office. Later, he came home to a wife who excitedly told him about moving to France, to start a new life. Frank reluctantly agreed.
“I just want to feel again. How’s that for ambition?” (Frank Wheeler)
In their minds, Paris held the promise of a life filled with all the things they long to have: possibilities, freedom, passion and creativity. They told their friends, who politely nodded but whispered among themselves, convinced that the plan was immature, impractical and unrealistic.
“No, Frank. This is what’s unrealistic. It’s unrealistic for a man with a fine mind to go on working year after year at a job he can’t stand. Coming home to a place he can’t stand, to a wife who’s equally unable to stand the same things. And you know what the worst part of it is? Our whole existence here is based on this great premise that we’re special. That we’re superior to the whole thing. But we’re not. We’re just like everyone else! We bought into the same, ridiculous delusion. That we have to resign from life and settle down the moment we have children. And we’ve been punishing each other for it.” (April Wheeler)
Their plan was thwarted when April became pregnant and Frank was offered a promotion in his well-paying but boring job. Suddenly there seemed more reasons to stay put.
Frank wasn’t man enough to support April and to follow through with their plans so April felt intensely resentful about terminating the move. She coped with it by having sex with their neighbour and committing abortion, but ended up killing herself.
Frank took the kids and moved to the city. The film ended showing how their neighbours were talking disapprovingly of the Wheelers.
“Hopeless emptiness. Now you’ve said it. Plenty of people are onto the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness.” (John Givings)
When I saw the film, I saw how the Wheelers were portraying the lives of many people. I saw myself in them, back when I was still doing a job I didn’t enjoy, back when I believed that I had to conform and live my life just like everybody else, back when I was drowning in hopelessness and believed there was no way out.
I am aware that this is a prevalent problem. When I talk to people age 25-35, the problems they all seem to have are: not knowing what they really wanted to do in life, hating their jobs or being extremely numbed with job boredom, not earning enough money to do everything they want, and relationship problems.
Is this the plague that’s silently killing our generation?
“You want to play house you got to have a job. You want to play nice house, very sweet house, you got to have a job you DON’T like.” (John Givings)
In Revolutionary Road, I kept hoping for the Wheelers to set themselves free. I wanted to egg them on, to say, “don’t refuse to settle for second best, don’t back down and just accept whatever is handed to you! You dont have to bow to a life of compromises. You have other options. Your dreams and hopes are all possible! Set yourselves free!”
I was hoping they would have the guts and courage to go on their own way and live the lives they’ve always wanted.
I wanted them to see that freedom was worth fighting for.
But they didn’t fight for it.
“Tell me the truth Frank, remember that? We used to live by it. And you know what’s so good about the truth? Everyone knows what it is however long they’ve lived without it. No one forgets the truth, Frank. They just get better at lying.” (April Wheeler)
But the most painful part was at the end, when I realised that the story was NOT about the Wheelers at all – they were just the “fingers pointing to the moon”. The most painful part was realising that the Wheelers were merely portraying what far too many of us do.
The Wheelers were merely mirroring to us the severity, the insanity, the enormity of the unnecesary suffering that we create for ourselves in real life.
If you’re one of those people who feel trapped, who feel you’re better off just staying in a job you hate; if you have already accepted defeat even before your fight had begun; if you’re one of those people who are breathing but have died a long time ago…
That, my friend, is the real tragedy here, and April Wheeler voiced it out so eloquently:
“I just wanted us to live again. For years I thought we’ve shared this secret that we would be wonderful in the world. I don’t know exactly how, but just the possibility kept me hoping. How pathetic is that? So stupid. To put all your hopes in a promise that was never made. Frank knows what he wants, he found his place, he’s just fine. Married, two kids, it should be enough. It is for him. And he’s right; we were never special or destined for anything at all.”
But I don’t want to finish this on such a tragic note. I invite you instead to believe in a different possibility. I have pondered and thought on what to say but Ayn Rand’s words said it best:
“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark. In the hopeless
swamps of the not quite, the not yet, and the not at all, do not let the
hero in your soul perish and leave only frustration for the life you
deserved, but never have been able to reach. The world you desire can
be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.”
~ Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours. Amen to that!
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