Brilliant portrayal of what American careerism breeds...frustration and discontent

Rating: Null/10 (7 October 1999)

It plays on your mind for days after seeing it. Disturbing, truthful, painful and honest. Those who haven't seen it..pay no attention to the close-minded moralists who walked out on this film. They think for some reason that it's still 1947. They haven't the guts to look out their own window and see the results of not declining morals, but something much more complex than that. The tragic results of malcontent, blind careerism and parents failure to communicate with their children. The film isn't trying to glamorize these people, idiots, its trying to shove a truth in your face. And its all done so brilliantly.. at times with drama, and at times with humor.
This movie was brilliant at conveying the creeping brooding undercurrents of American suburbia. It's a portrait of why we are failing, and perhaps why we have already failed. This is what you get when you have a culture that isolates their children as precious little artifacts not to be touched, loved, listened to or cared about, until they are 18 of course, and then suddenly they are shoved on the fast track to senior VP. We could learn so much from this film. We could learn from other cultures where jobs are the LEAST important things in their lives. The cultures who cherish family, conversation, community, eating, loving and taking major portions of their day to simply relax and look at nature. When we value community and family and each other, and forget about the Mercedes truck and who got promoted and $3,000 sofas some magical things start to happen...we will start to value our children as real people with real opinions, our families as something to value and love forever no matter what the cost, and mid-life crises might just disappear as well.
And I also strongly disagree with the statements that the films characters are stereotypes or caricatures. I know at least one person who mirrors each of the films main characters so closely its scary. My sister in her teens was an exact replica of the lonely confused teen in this film.
You can't afford to miss this film...