MY MOVIE SHELF: Revolutionary Road

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 159  Days to go: 150

Movie #224:  Revolutionary Road

I’m the first to admit Revolutionary Road is not for everyone, and I completely understand why some people aren’t into it. I am not one of those people. As far as I’m concerned, Revolutionary Road is beautiful in the way it perfectly encapsulates the ugly, devastating destruction of a marriage.

Frank and April Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet) are pretty selfish people, to be honest. They look down their noses at their friends and neighbors, positive they are better than everyone and everything else — completely above it all. Beyond that, as individuals neither Frank nor April are getting their needs met by their marriage, and as a result they completely fail to see beyond themselves to their partner. Even when they try to be considerate and supportive of one another they say the wrong thing or their timing is all off. Their relationship disintegrates and becomes toxic, and while there was a moment when it could’ve been salvaged, the moment passes and there’s nothing more either of them can do.

I myself have had that moment — I’ve seen the moment when my first marriage could’ve been saved, could’ve been rebuilt. I tried to grasp it, but it flitted away and there was nothing more to be done but endure it. Yes, I’m much happier and better off now, but in that terrible moment when your marriage is falling apart — especially when, at one point, you truly did love your spouse — absolutely nothing is okay. I really appreciate the fact that Revolutionary Road doesn’t shy away from that pain, that pettiness, that nastiness that erupts. It doesn’t downplay Frank and April’s shortcomings or try to explain them away. It highlights them, in full despicable glory — all the fights, all the low blows, all the resentments, all the betrayals and all the fits of rage. It can be hard to watch, but it’s also hard to live through and that’s what Revolutionary Road makes clear.

Leo holds his own here — he does a particularly good job of walking the line of Frank seeing April’s unhappiness following the cancellation of their Paris plans, while being caught in the societal constraints of having to provide for his family, being considered a man and being offered a lucrative new job — but Kate really hits it out of the park. Every chain-smoked cigarette screams her frustration. Every household chore speaks to her boredom. And when April kisses Frank and welcomes him home on his birthday, excited to tell him her plan to move the family to Paris, her entire body glows with hope. Then when she discovers her pregnancy the hope drains from her in buckets. Her desperation is tangible, and she’ll do anything to get her hope back, whether it’s to beg Frank not to make them stay there or to drunkenly fuck her oafish neighbor Shep (David Harbour) because he’s openly wanted her for so long. Nothing works, and her desperation becomes despondent resignation.

In many ways, April’s last morning raises all the red flags of someone committing suicide: She gives Frank a good breakfast for his momentous day. She calls to keep her kids with Milly (Kathryn Hahn), crying as she asks her to kiss them goodbye for her. She cleans the house and arranges her things and goes solemnly into the bathroom to complete the nasty business before her. I don’t think she knew what was going to happen, though. I think she knew the risk, because her pregnancy was beyond twelve weeks along, so she was prepared for the worst, but I still don’t think she intended the result. At the same time, however, I don’t think she had enough hope and will to live to fight for her life when it was in danger. She was lost and had given up.

The performances here are strong across the board, including from Kathy Bates as the Wheelers’ realtor and Michael Shannon as her so-called mentally unstable son John who seems to see the truth of Frank and April’s life more than either of them is willing to admit, and the end result is a film that both painfully and painstakingly recreates a marriage that is imploding onto itself, with no holds barred. It reflects the lengths to which we will go — lengths that are within us all, if pushed to the brink — when things truly start to fall apart, and it illustrates how ugly and hateful we all can be when our lives are crumbling, like an injured animal attacking to protect itself. It’s the worst of us, yes, but it’s still a story well-worth telling. And Revolutionary Road tells it exceptionally well.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Misery

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 195  Days to go: 200

Movie #182:  Misery

Nobody ever listens to me. Before I started watching this one tonight, I told the older kids how great it is, how it’s based on a Stephen King book (which the girl likes to read), and how I think they’d really like it. And despite being rated R, there’s really not much here the kids can’t handle (except for the hobbling, which no one can handle. I’ve never handled the hobbling), so I invited them to watch it with me. Neither one of them could be bothered. Toward the end, the boy got bored and came out to slum with his mom for a while, and he really liked what little of it he saw. But why not take my word for it in the first place? Losers.

Anyway, Misery is a fantastic little bottle movie (like a bottle episode on a TV show, it takes place almost entirely in one small location, with only the principal characters interacting there) that manages to build insane (haha) amounts of tension and suspense and terror out of the littlest things — literally, it is often the pauses in conversation, or simply the expressions either shared or concealed, that create the most anxiety.

Paul Sheldon (James Caan) is a bestselling historical romance writer. His franchise heroine is Misery Chastain, and while he’s garnered a lot of success from the Misery books, he feels the need to move on. The film opens as he’s managed to do just that, finishing a new, untitled manuscript in his usual haunt of the Silver Creek Lodge. He has a closing ritual he performs with the end of every novel, and then he sets out with his single copy of the manuscript in his soft leather briefcase on snowy and treacherous roads. Conditions worsen, and he loses control of his car. It flips and launches down a steep hill on the side of the road, where he loses consciousness, severely injured.

He is saved by local nurse Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates, knocking everyone’s socks off), who takes him to her home and patches him up the best she can, ostensibly because the roads are closed and the phones are down. She’s splinted his legs and popped his dislocated shoulder back into place (putting his arm in a sling) and she gives him fluids and frequent doses of pain pills. As the days progress, however, it becomes clearer and clearer that she’s hiding something, and soon it’s revealed that she never told anyone about finding Paul and that he’s imprisoned there with her, with no way to contact anyone on the outside.

This idea of incredible malice and, ultimately, horrible violence, coming from a place that originated in admiration — even adulation — was so scary because it was so well-hidden, so unexpected. Celebrities have many fans, and often come into contact with them in various ways, and the thought that some of them might harbor unbelievable hostility toward them resides in their deepest fears. It’s the terror of the unknown, of the unseen, like vicious piranhas lurking beneath the seemingly placid and glossy surface of a body of water. It makes the seemingly innocuous and pleasant statement, “I’m your number one fan,” into a one filled with foreboding and dread.

I like the idea of Lauren Bacall as Sheldon’s literary agent, though I wish she’d had more to do. And I really love the spice of Richard Farnsworth and Frances Sternhagen as Sheriff Buster and Deputy Virginia (when Buster finds Paul in the basement, I beg for a different ending). But Kathy Bates steals the show and every single scene she is in. Her blend of prudent goody-two-shoes and evil psychoface puts the audience on edge and never pulls back, to the point where even her hilarious absurdity (not just her raging rampages) is just as disturbing as it is funny. I mean, who knew “Mr. Man” could be such a disturbing epithet?

Filled with wonderfully suspenseful moments and a nightmare even more terrifying because of its outwardly innocent appearance, Misery is a startling, jaw-dropping, indelible film, and Annie Wilkes is an unforgettable villain. I can hardly tear my eyes away, despite how many times I watch. (Except for the hobbling part. Always look away for the hobbling.)

 

MY MOVIE SHELF: Dolores Claiborne

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 286  Days to go: 276

Movie #91: Dolores Claiborne

Most people, in my estimation, read a book first and then see the movie based on it afterward. That’s generally how these things work anyway; books come out years before their film adaptations, so obviously the books are read first. Except in my case. Not that I’ve never read a book before I’ve seen the movie, but most times I see a movie and discover it’s based on a book, and that’s when I seek the book out. I’m backwards that way. Always have been.

When the book Dolores Claiborne was released in the early ’90s sometime, I bought it as a gift for my friend — a big Stephen King fan — for her birthday, probably. (I suppose it could’ve been Christmas, but birthday seems more likely.) I didn’t give it much thought after that. Several years later, I saw the movie when it came out, and it struck me — the sadness, the harshness, the years of misunderstanding and resentment that can tear a relationship apart, or the years of mutual pain and shared hardships that can bring people closer. So I sought out the book. I really liked it as well, and because it contained a reference to another book, Gerald’s Game, I read that one as well. It scared the ever-loving bejeezus out of me and I pretty much gave up reading King after that. Still, this movie hangs on to me somehow.

Kathy Bates is brilliant in just about everything, but she doesn’t get nearly enough credit for her portrayal of Dolores. A bitter, hardened, frosty woman who’s lived every inch of a difficult life, most of it as a domestic servant to the wealthy Vera Donovan (Judy Parfitt), who Dolores is being accused of murdering — most vigorously by investigator Detective John Mackey (Christopher Plummer), who says she’s killed before.

Dolores Claiborne is a slowly building fire of secrets, lies, accusations and atrocities. Peppered with flashbacks, some of them unwelcome intrusions, it reveals, piece by piece, the truth about Dolores’s relationship with Vera, and the one she had with her husband (David Strathairn) almost twenty years earlier, when he died under questionable circumstances. It also deals with the crumbling, broken relationship Dolores has with her daughter Selena (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and how its rift came about.

The movie creates a pervasive mood of distance and depression, with cold, blue-tinted lighting that is unforgiving to say the least and a score by Danny Elfman that is subtly haunting and ominous and sorrowful (in case you thought he could only do playful quirkiness). In contrast, the flashbacks are all shot in bright, rich color — soft, warm beauty to be juxtaposed with the pain hiding just beneath the surface.

Jennifer Jason Leigh has never been an actress I’ve been particularly drawn to, but here she perfectly embodies a tortured and emotionally wrecked Selena, self-medicating with liquor and pills to help her get through her days (Ellen Muth as Selena’s younger self is also quite good). Christopher Plummer is relentless and angry and out for blood, pursuing Dolores with unwavering focus that has more to do with her husband’s death than Vera’s. Dolores, meanwhile, is single-minded and she couldn’t care less about the accusations against her, past or present, nor her standing or reputation in the town. She only cares about one person, and everything she’s ever done has served that purpose.

The film is also about the difficulty of being a woman — the difficulties of being a mother, of being a daughter, and of being a friend. Many times women feel alone in the world, with no supporters, and that was true of all these women — Dolores, Vera and Selena. And yet, sometimes unbeknownst to each woman individually, the others had their backs. Dolores and Vera looked out for Selena. Dolores looked out for Vera — and Selena supported her in death. Vera, and eventually Selena, looked out for Dolores. Sometimes a woman may feel like being a bitch is all she has to hold onto, but that’s not necessarily the case. The ones who love us and look out for us are there too.