Revolutionary Road

"A good companion piece to _What Happened to Anna K_, . another tragedy of bright people who can't reconcile their imagined, culturally superior and significant selves to the banality of real life. By turns hilarious, but ultimately painful, the story of April and Frank Wheeler is a scathing portrait of 1950s suburbia that still rings uncomfortably true."

"I'm kind of cheating here because I haven't read the book, only seen the movie. I wrote a FB note about it at the time, so I'll just copy/paste it here:<br/><br/>Just watched "Revolutionary Road", a glaring depiction of a relationship trainwrecked by the (ultimately) differing social desires of a married couple living in 1950's Connecticut. A painfully dark film that had me riveted to the screen.<br/><br/>This film, and those similar to it, are more realistic and truthful than all those "chick-flick" fantastical romance movies out there (and how I've come to hate them!!). Seriously, how many of us have dutifully stayed in the box that society and well-meaning people have thrust upon us, AND if we have, are we able to confront the damage it does without it doing us in??<br/><br/>But, dare we step outside the box at all?? Because the couple in this film did (or tried to do) exactly that, only to see their plans for a hopeful future unravel and disintegrate before their very eyes. The limitations that we think hold us back, may ultimately be the very thing that could have freed us from a far more horrific outcome.<br/><br/>The question becomes, do we live the way we're supposed to (adequate job, cubicles, quaint house, white picket fence, 2.3 children, a family car), or do we.......live the "American" dream of a carefree life and a passion for what WE choose to do (not what society chooses for us)?<br/><br/>Which is more dangerous?? And....are the choices really all that different from each other? "The more things change, the more things stay the same"...<br/><br/>Amazing thought-provoking film."

"You will end up hating the characters. It is also incredibly depressing."

"I give this a 4.5<br/><br/>Mild spoilers alert!<br/><br/>This is a collection of unlikeable characters all struggling with the stifling conformity that is America in the 50s. Focused on Frank and April Wheeler it shows how hard it is to break away from conformity. Both want to but are not synchronized in their efforts. I really liked the way the Wheelers' relationship is described and evolves. How the breakdown is played out and the desperate game Frank plays to try and keep his life together. You can tell the fragility of their existence by how setbacks have such bad outcomes. I found it well written, paced and progressively gripping."