Thirsting for

Rating: 9/10 (27 December 2008)

Love, it's a curious thing. When it's fresh it is new, it is exciting and you wake up every morning just aching to spend another day with the person you love. Then you get married, have kids perhaps and things change. You fight. You fight over NOTHING. You grow to loathe the person you used to love to wake up next to. The world closes in on you and things don't seem the same anymore. You daydream about what life used to be like, how much love you used to be in and ask yourself - what happened??? Frank and April Wheeler meet and fall in love at a party. They talk about how their lives are going to be extraordinary and they are going to be different. They are going to live in Paris. They are never going to be "those people" in the suburbs. That isn't what life has in store for them. However life happens, April gets pregnant and they have to settle for a life more ordinary than they had planned for with the promise that someday, they will return to their dreams and complete them.
The Wheeler's dreams do not ever become reality and as the bleak expanse of life stretches out ahead of April she decides to reach out for her personal brass ring and convince Frank that they are better than their home on Revolutionary Road and Frank's job with his father's company and are meant for the greatness that they once talked about having in Paris. April quickly begins to hope again that not only will her life change to what it should have been but that her and Frank will fall back in love again. Frank falls in love with the idea and agrees to go, but has reservations about leaving the job he hates but that gives him a purpose in life. The plans are only a temporary band-aid as their glass house of dreams tumble around them and become a shattered illusion of what it used to be.
This movie is not one that you will send your entire family to see - or even your good friends. It isn't one that everyone will get or even WANT to get. However, this movie will tear out the heart of the people that have been in a relationship that has gone sour and were powerless to stop it. You try everything to stop the inevitable train wreck you see coming but yet, it still ends in a fiery crash and you stand and wonder how your life could end up this way. That's Frank and April and you will come to love and hate them by the end of this movie.
The acting in this movie is beyond amazing because it's simple and not overdone by the lead actors. Many things are not ever said - nor needed to be said - and were played with a flick of emotion across the face. I watched this movie expecting Kate to be the one to blow me away as usual and was shocked when it was Leo that knocked my socks off. I felt little sympathy for Frank in the novel but in the movie he plays him so well you can't help but feel sorry for him. I must mention that the supporting roles in this movie are nothing to sneeze at as well.
If you are looking for a wholesome family movie that will melt your heart, this isn't it. However, if you are willing to deal with a bit of stark reality - this is the movie for you. It rocked me harder than American Beauty ever did.