Well performed downer! Insightful...........?

Rating: 7/10 (21 August 2009)

This movie has elicited many "10s" and lots of "2s" from our trusty IMDb readers. That is always interesting to me. A performance is called "bad community theater" stuff by one viewer, others hail the movie's performances as "great".
I'm guessing that the depressing nature of watching a suburban couple bemoan their seemingly OK life, and the internal strife of that conflict, is insightful for most, painful for some and irritating for a few.
I generally watch movies to be enlightened, entertained or educated. I'd be hard pressed to say this movie did any of those. But, I was enthralled by the performances, which I considered to be as good as they get. A scene of the corporate "clones" departing the 'burbs for their corporate jobs was sensationally filmed, stunning in is scope and set the tone for the "robotic" view of suburban life the author/director chose to hang their story on. But this point of view is not enlightening. Kate and Leo, as the struggling suburban couple, argue with the intent to injure, but after reflection, seem to still have the core of affection that originally brought them together. They fight hard, re-group, create a plan to break away and then deteriorate again as the plan slips away.
It's not much of a plan. Quit their present life and head to Paris. She'll work, he'll find himself! Other than they are not the "special" people Kate envisioned they would be, there isn't much to escape from. Is Leo droning out a living? Sure, who didn't! It was post-war USA. But then he's offered a promotion that seems a bit exciting to him, so maybe things are looking up. Kate can't even verbalize what makes them "special" and why they should escape their "trapped" life, other than they just should.
I felt the movies' "big cheat", was the role of Kathy Bates' son. An accomplished mathematician, he is deemed different, institutionalized and apparently brutalized. He has had 64 shock treatments for a condition that doesn't appear to warrant such drastic treatment. But, that's life in the 50's. Offbeat is insane. But, he is presented as the person with the real insight! Is it the author's point that 64 shock treatments help see life more clearly. The character gives us the key insightful line in the movie when he proclaims that many admit to the emptiness of suburban life, but that "it takes real guts to see the hopelessness." In his only other scene he makes a proclamation to Kate that seals the movie's final fate. Perhaps his unfiltered take on life makes the character viable, but I thought it was too extreme, too convenient. And the use of ex-marital activity by both was intriguing. In both cases it was to feel something, anything!
But, I'm babbling. The movie was a well performed downer. We watch a painful slice of life. In fact, if you get the DVD make sure to watch the deleted scenes. The director may have left an Academy Award nomination for DeCaprio on the cutting floor. He has two incredible (i.e. -- not "community player") scenes that were left out.