Riveting.

Rating: Null/10 (22 January 2009)

This is a very good movie.
I think what a number of the negative commentators on IMDb have failed to realize is that this is not a 21st century look back at the 1950s. This book (yes I've read it. It's very good) was actually written  by a man  in 1961. This was very much a contemporary look at the state of 1950s marriage and social mores. Not some feminist diatribe written by a modern author 'looking back in anger' at a bygone age they never knew. And it's damning.
Kate Winslet and Leonardo Di Caprio give utterly committed performances as April and Frank Wheeler. Winslet in particular is excellent (the movie is directed by her husband, Sam Mendes, of American Beauty fame.) I thought to start with that Di Caprio was a bit light weight for the part, but then Frank is a fairly lightweight character, so in retrospect, I think he was perfect for the part.
The story hinges around the idea that the beautiful, bright young Wheelers think they are too good for the 'burbs, and that they are creative, arty types who should be living a far more Bohemian lifestyle. April puts up a good pretence on the home front in Connecticut while Frank plays at being an office drone in New York, but where is the lost promise of their youth and passion? Shouldn't they be doing something more profound with their lives? April hatches a scheme by which they can move to Paris and she will support them while Frank discovers himself. On the surface this seems like a very superficial idea for a major film, but it really all hinges around that central idea, are we all truly 'special', individuals, doomed - trapped - to live the life of battery hens, or should we just accept that most of us are pretty average and get on with it.
The Wheelers of course, inhabit the worst of all possible worlds, they ARE average but think they're not. April failed as an actress, even in community theatre, Frank may have a book in him. But I doubt it. They spend a summer making tentative plans to escape their life, but it all derails completely when April becomes pregnant with her third child after an act of unprotected passion on the kitchen counter (well Frank enjoyed it anyway) with tragic consequences.
And at this point I have to say that I think Winslet should be up for some kind of award for sex in uncomfortable places. In Little Children we saw her stark naked on the washing machine; this time it's the (front) seat of a car and on the cold Formica. I take my hat off to her (but only my hat...)
This is a stark look at unhappy relationships in a time which was more socially constrained. I was born in the 1950s about the time this movie is set (a third child, and admittedly in the UK not the USA, but believe me, bad marriages are universal), and I recall from early childhood the very apparent strains within my parents' marriage; the 1950s were a time of recovery from the war, when everyone was supposed to pretend to be happy even when they weren't and one was expected to put up a good 'front.' Very, very different from today. I'd go so far as to say that I was aware from quite an early age that my parents really couldn't stand the sight of each other anymore. But divorce was totally out of the question, it was social death, and my own birth is testament to how unreliable contraception was back then. Home-made and highly illegal abortions were really not that unusual.
The period details are all perfect, the incessant smoking - again well remembered from my own childhood where in retrospect I see everything wreathed in a cloud of my mother's cigarette smoke - the hats, the shirt-waister frocks. The only thing I don't recall from Britain is the Martinis. Sweet sherry was more the thing.
Kathy Bates as the realtor is great but Michael Shannon as her son, let out of the psychiatric unit for a four hour furlough, is just extraordinary. I see today he's been Oscar nominated and it's well deserved. After many hours of electro shock he lacks the necessary social conventions to put up a good 'front' and he is damning in his analysis of the Wheelers' relationship. It's good stuff, not exactly entertainment, but riveting nonetheless. The musical score is excellent.
One of the year's best, a movie all about the acting. OK, I'm off to work on my book now. I know I've got one in me.