The Wheelers

Just got through watching Revolutionary Road, a 2008 Leonardo DiCaprio flick of mid-’50s family romance and drama.

I wasn’t particularly in the mood for drama, it’s Friday night after all and DiCaprio movies have a habit of stimulating thought, which may or may not be the best attribute when feeling antisocial and staying inside at the end of the week. Something comic or maybe some effects-laden action spoof might have been a wiser choice.

Revolutionary Road, however, was so well made that it took me away – it actually took me out of my living room and back into a world where so many things are different, yet so many others are just the same. Both DiCaprio’s and Kate Winslet’s performances were stunning; the emotion so real and so pervasive, so much so that it turned a solidly written but otherwise unambitious drama into a real winner.

There is a theme laced into the movie, calling to view the age-old question; are we special or just another average Joe? Paradoxically, how can there be such a thing as an “average Joe” when such depth and contrast of emotion resides in each of us?

Recommended, but probably not something you’d go see with your girlfriend on a date…