Runaway Road

Rating: 5/10 (29 December 2008)

Leo and Kate's (and don't forget the wonderful Kathy Bates as well) reunion here in 'Revolutionary Road' from 'Titanic' reminded me so much of the Richard Gere/Julia Roberts's 'Pretty Woman' follow-up/reunion 'Runaway Bride.' In both cases, the originals they starred in were incredibly better and the latter films weren't complete disappointments, just not as great. Here we have Leo acting like Leo, but much better is Kate who shows so much depth to the lost housewife of the fifties who realized what little anyone else that lived in the area/time either saw or talked about: the 'Stepford Wives' effect. Of course, I'm not talking about robots, but they might as well just be. Men: grow, find a great, but boring job, marry, have 1 kid, get promoted, have another kid, repeat. Women: just do whatever the man says. I liked Kate in this movie because I truly believed her anguish, the lost feeling she had, the 'no-escape' clause she thought there was. If anyone gets nominated, it should be her. Everyone else, including Leo, might have just walked off the 'Mad Men' extras back lot. Overall, I liked the film and the study of the two seemingly (but really not) cardboard cuts of the neighborhood (or times); however it seemed to stretch a 20-page-novelette into 2 hours of film. And boy, did it really make me want to have a cigarette, and not because of any steamy scenes.