"People Are On To The Emptiness. But It Takes A Someome With Guts To See The Hopelessness"

Rating: 8/10 (30 June 2010)

" someone with guts to see the hopelessness". oooh. ouch. take that America and stick up your suburb. fortunately there is hope in that statement. it simply means that there is a whole world beyond the all-American middle class dream which, these days, sort of seems like a pipe dream. it feels like most people in American can't see out of their own little box, cubicle, tract-home or club. that's why things are so stagnant. and we keep letting the same status-quo mediocrities dictate mores and beliefs with out ever questioning them because everyone is so afraid to be different and march to their own drummer. i mean who really wants to feel like the odd man out? take it from most of us who are different. it's hard.
taking a good, hard look at yourself and the environment around you is usually a pretty enlightening experience. you can, however, be a little too hard on yourself and things. Richard Yates book and Sam Mendes film is perhaps that, but it does offer insights you usually won't get from most media in this country. i never read Yate's American classic, but i do know Mendes, and viewing things from a hard perspective is what Mendes does best. look at 'American Beauty' and what excellent but hard, stern film that was. not all of America lives up to Walt Disney's idealistic vision of this country. not everything is okay with suburbia, marriage and the "American Dream".
it's a little spooky when the only character in a play that seems sane is the crazy guy. beautifully played by Michael Shannon (was he nominated for this? he should have.)and it's equally disturbing to think death is the only way out.
so much of the film is summed up in the end scenes where the couple next door decides "we won't talk about the Wheelers again". classic case of American denial.