What would have happened if Jack and Rose had both survived?
Judging from Revolutionary Road, they probably wouldn't have had that much of a marriage.
I want to say something about one of my biggest cinematic disappointments of 2008, but I'm rather tired so I'll just copy & paste what I posted on awardsdaily
(yes, it's a bit disjointed but these are forum posts so...)
I'm so very disappointed. I really like Mendes. This is his worst effort by far. It's not awful, it just lingers there between being mediocre and bad. The real problem here is the screenplay, it tries so hard to be Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, but with a script that is so not witty and inventive the Woolf approach really doesn't work. And that affects the acting, too. Bates and Shannon were extremely awkward, and I don't get what Di Caprio was doing. I usually love him, but this performance was so forced and lifeless. Very standard angry acting and not one single moment in which the immaturity OR insecurity of the character came out.
I liked Winslet, it's a solid performance with a couple of truly beautiful moments (my favorite being the little smile she gives after she screams - very powerful way to convey the illusion of triumph and liberation that the character is feeling at that moment). Still, she's been much better before.
The approach and style of the film reminded me of Virginia Woolf, in the way the relationship between the two characters is handled, not by a thematic but by a filmic point of view. Like in Virginia Woolf we are presented with two characters whose backstory is vague at best, we get to know them at the height of a personal crisis and we're almost always presented with moments of rageful outbrust rather than moments leading to the outburst. Which is really an interesting approach, actually, I think it gives the film an intriguing and fragmentary structure. But, while it does have an interesting premise, I don't think it works because the script is mostly very superficial when it needs to be at its most inventive and meaningful, which is exactly during those moments of outburst. There is no balance, IMO, between what the characters say (mostly predictable and shallow) and how theatrically they say it.
I actually don't have a problem with the shallowness of what they say, as I said, it's how they say it. But at the same time I get the feeling that Mendes has a problem with these characters' shallowness. I don't think this film was ever intended to be about the superficiality of the Wheelers' life. Had that been the case I think it would have been much more successful. Mendes thought the dialogue smarter than it is, and tried to make a movie based on an allegedly truthful look at these people's relationship, but it never delivers, IMO.
*sigh* Poor Leo & Kate. There's something in that woman that sucks the life and talent out of Di Caprio. He was so good before working with her and so good after working with her and delivered his WORST when he had to share the screen with her. At least this time he lives. Sometimes, when he was at his OMG ANGRY best in RR, you could almost sense what he was actually thinking and not saying out-loud. Just like in that wonderful/awful screaming scene (I had to watch it FIVE TIMES, I swear, it was so bad I couldn't get enough of it), he goes all FFFFFFFUCK YOU APRIL (did he attend the Faye Dunaway School for Raging Queens to prepare for that scene?), what he was actually thinking was probably:
And THIS is for letting me sink and freeze to death, there was plenty of room on that plank, YOU BITCH.
I want to say something about one of my biggest cinematic disappointments of 2008, but I'm rather tired so I'll just copy & paste what I posted on awardsdaily
(yes, it's a bit disjointed but these are forum posts so...)
I'm so very disappointed. I really like Mendes. This is his worst effort by far. It's not awful, it just lingers there between being mediocre and bad. The real problem here is the screenplay, it tries so hard to be Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, but with a script that is so not witty and inventive the Woolf approach really doesn't work. And that affects the acting, too. Bates and Shannon were extremely awkward, and I don't get what Di Caprio was doing. I usually love him, but this performance was so forced and lifeless. Very standard angry acting and not one single moment in which the immaturity OR insecurity of the character came out.
I liked Winslet, it's a solid performance with a couple of truly beautiful moments (my favorite being the little smile she gives after she screams - very powerful way to convey the illusion of triumph and liberation that the character is feeling at that moment). Still, she's been much better before.
The approach and style of the film reminded me of Virginia Woolf, in the way the relationship between the two characters is handled, not by a thematic but by a filmic point of view. Like in Virginia Woolf we are presented with two characters whose backstory is vague at best, we get to know them at the height of a personal crisis and we're almost always presented with moments of rageful outbrust rather than moments leading to the outburst. Which is really an interesting approach, actually, I think it gives the film an intriguing and fragmentary structure. But, while it does have an interesting premise, I don't think it works because the script is mostly very superficial when it needs to be at its most inventive and meaningful, which is exactly during those moments of outburst. There is no balance, IMO, between what the characters say (mostly predictable and shallow) and how theatrically they say it.
I actually don't have a problem with the shallowness of what they say, as I said, it's how they say it. But at the same time I get the feeling that Mendes has a problem with these characters' shallowness. I don't think this film was ever intended to be about the superficiality of the Wheelers' life. Had that been the case I think it would have been much more successful. Mendes thought the dialogue smarter than it is, and tried to make a movie based on an allegedly truthful look at these people's relationship, but it never delivers, IMO.
*sigh* Poor Leo & Kate. There's something in that woman that sucks the life and talent out of Di Caprio. He was so good before working with her and so good after working with her and delivered his WORST when he had to share the screen with her. At least this time he lives. Sometimes, when he was at his OMG ANGRY best in RR, you could almost sense what he was actually thinking and not saying out-loud. Just like in that wonderful/awful screaming scene (I had to watch it FIVE TIMES, I swear, it was so bad I couldn't get enough of it), he goes all FFFFFFFUCK YOU APRIL (did he attend the Faye Dunaway School for Raging Queens to prepare for that scene?), what he was actually thinking was probably:
And THIS is for letting me sink and freeze to death, there was plenty of room on that plank, YOU BITCH.