Revolutionary Road

At one of my favorite new meets old meets indie meets serving alcohol theaters (the Kendall Square Theater) I took in a free screening of Revolutionary Road, (thank you Boston IFF!) starring those kids from Titanic and directed by Sam Mendes (think Road to Perdition, American Beauty). It is just about January now, better known as 'hurry, get all the quality movies in before the Oscar deadline' season, otherwise known as winter, and this movie definitely falls into that category (along with my free pass to it). 

Without spoiling it too much, the premise of the film takes a sinister look at the great compromises of life (ie, the suburban lifestyle of circa mid century America... so American Beauty with less ha-ha funny and no expository voiceover in technicolor!) and how people struggle when life (or fear of living) gets in their way. I took its theme to heart (my own dreams withstanding), that living where nothing goes wrong isn't much of a life at all. Of course, in order to reach that conclusion, I'm agreeing that I'm 1) a little off my rocker and 2) I better enjoy being off my rocker, because it certainly looks like no fun being on my rocker. 

As far as the regular movie items - music suited; Jack was great; Rose was effing fantastic; lighting felt lukewarm, but that could be intentional; the story felt firm, but not tight; the dialogue felt like popcorn (it pops and punches, and jerks you around, sometimes spelling things out for you a bit too much, but the acting lets you know there are other messages... and that's nothing like popcorn at all) I found myself laughing when I shouldn't, and not laughing when other people were... the denoumout shatters you, like slamming a glass jug of milk against the refrigerator, but then the ending kind of feels like the milk dripping down into a puddle (I wasn't invested in the secondary characters enough for it to make a difference... agree... disagree... tomato.. tomahto).

Sorry if that seems overly critical, but it was a fantastic show and definitely worth recommending to whoever stumbles across this blog.

Unless you like Michael Bay movies in the 21st Century.