(no subject)
The movie would perfectly fit into my university thesis on the American dream and how the idea is projected in movies... I think I'll post the work if I find it in my archives... Anyway, this one is definitely about the crash of the dream (ideologically very close to Sam Mendes's other movie - the Oscar-winning "American Beauty", but a lot more... how to say - psychologically tense? a lot of kitchen skirmishes between the spouses - Kate and Leo...
One more point - Mendes did a good job because I had no flashbacks of Kate and Leo on Titanic. I guess that's the problem all stars have to face - the need to be perceived as wholly new characters without having the tail of previous roles popping up in their new movies. That's actually not their merit - it's mostly directing that helps them out... otherwise at some point the viewer could say "I don't believe" (не верю), which is deadly for any movie and for any star.