The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

Rating: 10/10 (8 January 2009)

If you are interested in entertainment then get an "Iron Man" or something like this – and this is not to be taken as a reproach, sometime we need just mindlessly relax. However if you would like to entertain meaning of your own life and re-examine its fundamental principles then this film is for you. Yes, this is Oskar-price material, in all respects, and I did enjoy it very much and not likely to forget any time soon. This is not mindless and manipulative, self-serving sludge, but something you can take home with you, keep and use it to improve your own life.
The "Revolutionary Road" is not necessarily a street name; rather it is an attitude toward life. And so what if Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) and April (Kate Winslet) are both seem to be an "ordinary people"? They loved the house on "Revolutionary Road" - understand this as a symbol of self-creation. When we are young we are all 'potentiality', we are a blank slate to be filled with anything. Soon we settle and stop dreaming, stop examining our lives – this is like death. After a while, Frank's and April's lives became rather mundane, not 'revolutionary'. This became the physical death of April and the emotional death of Frank. Although Frank physically survives and now dedicated his life to his children, his responsibility to himself, as individual, is unfulfilled and there is no future for him as a person.
The only authentic person in this story is Bill (Michael Shannon), who's happened to be psychotic and who undergone 27 shock therapy treatments, correction that society administer to make one socially acceptable; after all we can not just allow anyone forget their responsibility, don't we? He comes to the "Revolutionary Road" and feels at the right place, until Frank and April veer off this road. He's like their self-consciousness, unwavering and brutally honest; self-consciousness they would violently banish (Frank almost hits him and April is also angry at him). The fact that he is psychotic is another confirmation of his symbolism as anti-social construct of human psyche.
The film does not answer any specific question, it only raise and examine issues from several perspectives. It strongly asserts that we must treat our lives very seriously, not just live them. It is not that we need to give up everything and move to Paris, no! Paris is not a place, it is a state of being where you still have dreams of self fulfillment and constantly reexamining your life seeking meaning of your existence. When other people allude to Frank and April that, literally taken, moving to Paris, is ill conceived, they are neither wrong nor shortsighted. Literally moving to Paris will not solve any problem; moving to 'Paris' must be done psychologically, as an act of self-reevaluation. And it is not a matter of responsibilities toward people you love, its most of all responsibility toward yourself, to know that you are not settled (i.e. dead) but actively seeking meaning of your existence, that you are 'full of life and blood' as Frank said – for if you stop this process you are also not very good for the people you love.
Another interesting feature of the film is that it considers both freedom and constraint as dialectic opposites. Some people operate well and are very creative and fulfilled while constrained by a situation. You can always strive to be the best you can at you job, or be a good mother or father. Social constraints are not necessarily evil. For instance, look at the constraint of a religion – it is dogmatic but within these hard set canonical boundaries there is a great opportunity to improvise and achieve great results. On the other hand, some people can not deal with any constraint. Such people either create their own rules or are perpetually miserable while forced to live by rules of others. The former are the stuff from which great people are made of, the latter are eternally miserable.
These are different facets of the human condition which is an essence of our nature. This film quietly and seriously deals with these important issues. It is a worthy addition to our path toward better self-knowledge.