An incredibly HEAVY & ACCURATE portrayal of the greatest obstacle in life

Rating: 9/10 (8 January 2009)

I guess Sam Mendes is a pretty dependable director. This is a near perfect movie.
One of the heavy, sad themes of the movie is "letting go of your inner child". There are people that are fortunate enough to be put in positions that allow them to keep this part of themselves alive for their entire lives, but the truth is that isn't usually the case.
The movie is a tale of 2 wonderful, creative, intelligent people basically being torn to pieces by everything that forms our world. In the end, I feel that behind it all, if Kate and Leo's characters were allowed to do exactly what they wanted to with their lives, they would have stayed in love and in a healthy relationship until death. Unfortunately, life does not always allow people to do whatever they've always dreamed of doing. That rarely seems to be the case, sadly enough.
So here, you are presented with the demise of their love story. Yes, it is as depressing as you would assume it is and as depressing as people tell you it is.
This movie sums up the biggest obstacle in life.
What is ultimately the most dependable source of happiness in life? LOVE. What is the number one obstacle that gets in the way of making LOVE last? LIFE ITSELF. Everything else...
It's a heavy movie and it certainly isn't going to make you feel great, but HELLO, this is a realistic portrayal of just what is going on every day. This is a struggle that ANYONE with a heart and a brain has to deal with, and therefore it is a universally powerful film.
Of course there couldn't be much better candidates to star than Leo and Kate, they both made it beyond believable. Viewers complain that they couldn't get into the movie because they didn't like the characters - I think they need to realize that even the best people can go into psychotic, helpless, horrible phases once life has them by the balls.
I also loved "the lunatic" who wasn't a lunatic at all just simply a man who had the world figured out a little too intensely and could see right through it, therefore had lost his desire to be a part of the system. Unfortunately there are people like all over the world. It's unfortunate that sometimes the most intelligent ones are the ones who lose the desire to maintain a "stable life". In the 50's I don't think this was as common as it seems to be now, so I guess they put him in a loony bin for his views... I got along with him great though!!!
Sam Mendes knew exactly what he was doing. That's all I have to say.
Blaaaaaa this movie just tackled so many of the most powerful and engaging things in life that I cannot stress how good it was. I could go on and on but I'm going to stop myself right here. I want to see it again, right now. God dammit.