Revolutionary Road: A tale of submission into Americana


I recently rented Revolutionary Road based on the novel of the same title. The Sam Mendes vehicle was a stirring account of the cost of the American dream. Basically watching the self-destruction of Frank and April Wheeler (Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio) kind of felt like watching a ship sail past the horizon, getting lost in the way to a destination that is not quite clear to you. I am not going to lie, this is definitely not a “feel good” movie. In fact the movie is void of a lot of feelings at all. I think that is part of the problem. A character cannot be apathetic and sympathetic at the same time.

The film starts innocently enough with the brief courtship of Frank and April, talking about their aspirations and the need to try to “feel alive”. I thought that that statement was a pre-cursor for future failures. If someone can’t find vitality on their own accord, how will taking on another life make this goal more feasible? As was the custom of the 1950s the couple gets married and moves into a VERY WASPish neighborhood, on Revolutionary Road. I know that the film was supposed to make me feel sorry for the characters because of their struggle to rebel against the inevitable predictability of suburban life, but I had a hard time feeling sorry for people who were financially stable and supposedly well bred.

The real estate agent of the Wheelers, played by Kathy Bates, was a very tragic character. I think she was supposed to represent what could happen if the someone fully submitted to the ideal that the suburban existence was a utopia. Her prim and proper behavior masked a plethora of faults, desperation, and failures. Her son, brilliantly played by Michael Shannon , is a sociopath who might also be the most sane character in the entire piece. He at least had the intestinal fortitude to admit what a joke the existences of the people in the community of the Wheeler’s truly is.

The main questions that come from the movie, unfortunately I have not read the novel yet, are what does it mean to be successful? More importantly, does said success equate to happiness? Most people think of success as financial independence; a capacity to accomplish dreams based on this same financial stability. Maybe that is where the fault lies? If a dream has to be based on money what does that say about the nature of the dream? The idea of Americana: the house, the car, the white picket fence, etc. is rooted in materialism. Is that what American philosophy is based on commercial Darwinism?

Frank Wheeler as a character knows that he has succumbed to the thing he used to loathe, being ordinary. Everything about his life is predicated on predictability and comfort. His attire is rooted in the very same color scheme that every other male he goes to work with wears. Even his gait is similar in its pattern. But how does one break this vicious cycle of sacrificing individuality for financial comfort? I guess maybe the answer lies in thinking about what is truly important in your universe. At the beginning of the film, Frank describes in great detail how the people of France are far superior to Americans who are enamored with their own image and position. It is about the only time in the film where Frank is not whining about his station in life. The sadness that radiates from Frank’s core is his abysmal disposition because he acknowledges his own acceptance into mediocrity and complacency.

April Wheeler is an even bigger tragedy because she is lacking the small sense of professional freedom that Frank has. April starts out as an aspiring actress and then slowly moves to being the ever-pathetic failed actress. Ergo, April is tied to a marriage which is quickly eroding in which she is supposed to be a passive bystander, like most women of the time. April must be mother and wife, fully immersing herself in a role that she finds both demeaning and unfulfilling on many levels. How can she ever find any sense of happiness when she has every semblance of self that she has? All this despair happens in the name of this ideal that she and Frank are supposed to try to aspire to. In the film April confronts Frank and asks why they have to conform to the rules of society? It is a very valid question and one which doesn’t have a clear answer. Maybe the answers are fear and expectations. Fear of the unknown. Fear of public scrutiny. Fear of failure. Fear of being an individual in a copycat society. Expectations that there is only on e way to live and that in that way of life there are very specific gender roles.

A question that I asked myself while watching the film was, is there such a thing as a “good” marriage? Maybe, by definition, monogamy is a futile concept. When I looked at the characters of April and Frank Wheeler I just felt sorry for them. What passion they had at the beginning of their relationship was compromised and completely lost. April herself acknowledges this when she calls Frank, “Some guy who made me laugh at a party and nothing else.” Is that the sum of a relationship; various encounters with the same person added together that equate to something substantive? I always figured what is the point in having a family if the two centers of the family are not stable? Children do not make a relationship easier, they only compound the responsibility. The only positive I saw out of the family dynamic was that the children did not seem to be permanently scarred. Maybe that is one positive ramification of raising children; focusing on their life distracts from your own and your own problems. Kind of like a 20 year band-aid.

I will end by saying that I thought the movie was sadly veiled look at the consequences of Americana. It definitely wasn’t a “feel good” movie and I imagine the novel had the same tone. Maybe the movie should be seen as a warning to all those blossoming yuppies out there who think that there is such a thing as perfection. That the perfect house, perfect spouse, perfect job, and perfect family will all equate to the perfect life. I think that the notion of the perfect suburban existence was destroyed, examined, and proven to be a complete fallacy. Perfection is nothing to pursue because it is a façade and its pursuit can result in the permanent loss of the self.