Revolutionary Road

Although I have many happy things to write about from my vacation (including my first dress fitting) and my trip to DC with Adam (including our first meeting with the priest, an Engagement Encounter weekend, and apartment shopping), I find that it's always easiest to write what's fresh. And I have something slightly less sunny on my mind.

Revolutionary Road reunites Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in a dark sketch of married life. DiCaprio plays a disillusioned thirty-year old working in a job he hates to support the family he has been compelled--half by his own desire and half by social pressure--to start. Winslet matches him as an independent-minded woman trapped into the life of a suburban housewife that she never wanted. Though the film tends to be somewhat over-the-top and self-indulgent, it encapsulated some of my darkest fears about marriage after the silver plate has tarnished.

DiCaprio's character is a man who has never found his vocation. He suffers through his desk job to support his family. But he doesn't daydream of life as a writer, or an actor, or a teacher--he doesn't have that luxury. Because he has never taken the time to find his vocation, he doesn't even know what to dream for. This gapping hole in his life leaves him undamentally unhappy, emasculated, and unable to love his wife the way he ought.

Winslet's character has dreams of her own. She still pursues them, choosing to act in local theater even after moving down to the suburbs for their children. For her, its less that her own life is unfulifilled than that her husband's is. They can't be anything is he isn't anything. As he loses respect for himself, she begins to question his masculinity and lose her respect for him. The more he resentfully rebuffs her efforts to help him find his vocation, the more estranged their marriage becomes and the further she drifts from sanity.

The real tragedy of the film is how alone the couple is in their search for meaning. Other characters are fundamentally incapable of understanding the couple's complaint. Friends look at them with skeptical astonishment when they discuss their schemes to find something better in life. DiCaprio's co-worker waves his arms, gesticulating, about DiCaprio quitting his job to find his "vocation." In the end, the only man who recognizes the horror of the couple's lifestyle is the mad son of a neighbor. In the world of Revolutionary Road, only the insane look for meaning.

Winslet's character truly thought that he life was going to be special. Not that she was going to be rich or famous, but that her life would mean something to her and to those around her. It drives her slowly mad to watch the man she loves failing to live up to his purpose. Neither of them answer their callings; it ruins their marriage and their lives.

I'd be lying to myself if I denied how much I identify with Winslet's character, or at least the way I imagine her to be when she and DiCaprio's character first married. I, too, occassionally wonder whether I will feel trapped in the life I've chosen. I worry that Adam would choose a life he hated if that was the only way to support me, rather than allowing me to make whatever sacrifice is necessary to help him find and fulfill his vocation.

The mental image is difficult to sustain. Adam is absolutely wonderful. We have a strong vision of what it is we want in life. We've communicated with each other about it and are both prepared to do what it takes to get there. We think we're on the track of God's vocation for our lives. And, in all honesty, I think we are pretty special. But, in the dead of night, I sometimes wonder with Winslet: will my life always have meaning?