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: Groundhog Day

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: 243 Days to go: 248

Movie #134: Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day is a perfect movie, and my absolute favorite work of Harold Ramis (he wrote, produced and directed the film). Framed as a silly little movie that takes place in a silly little town on a silly little holiday, Groundhog Day is actually an utterly flawless encapsulation of the human condition.

Phil Connors (Bill Murray) is a Pittsburgh weatherman sent into Punxsutawny, PA with his producer Rita (Andie MacDowell) and cameraman Larry (Chris Elliott) to cover the emergence of the groundhog and report on its modern mythological ability to predict the weather by virtue of whether or not it sees its shadow. Phil is egotistical and snide, with no use or interest in this quaint town, its people (or any people in general, especially if he thinks they’re below him, which almost everyone is), or its rituals. He wants to get in and get out as fast as possible, but when the crew is waylaid by a blizzard Phil failed to see coming, he winds up reliving the day over and over and over again. Every day he wakes up at 6AM, and it’s always February 2. The people he meets, the events of the day, they never change.

What’s really beautiful about the film (aside from the fact that Bill Murray would probably have been an excellent weatherman if acting and comedy hadn’t worked out) is that Phil experiences all the joy, all the fear, all the pain, all the boredom, all the arrogance and all the hopelessness we all would feel in this situation. The first time it happens he’s confused, of course, but then he starts to take advantage of it. He seduces Nancy (Marita Geraghty), he robs an armored truck, he goes on joyrides. He gets drunk, eats anything and everything he wants, and sometimes he just acts silly. Soon he tries to take advantage of his position to seduce Rita, but she’s not as easily maneuvered and it becomes more and more evident that the less spontaneous their interactions are — the more times Phil has relived the same moments in an effort to get them just right — the less authentic and moving they are. Every time, he drives Rita away. Every night ends in a slap when he goes too far. He becomes despondent, desperate, suicidal. He kills himself any number of times, any number of ways, but still wakes up at six the next morning. The same morning, actually, forever and ever.

The movie, of course, only shows a couple dozen of his days, but it lets us know how long this has been going on. The day he spends dressed like Clint Eastwood in an old Western, he announces he’s seen Heidi II over a hundred times. When he tells Rita he’s a god, he says “Well maybe the real God uses tricks, you know? Maybe he’s not omnipotent. He’s just been around so long he knows everything,” and he indicates it would take six-seven months to learn to flick a card into a hat as well as he does. So Phil has obviously been stuck for a very long time, and he’ll be stuck even longer before he gets it right.

At Rita’s suggestion that maybe this kind of immortality isn’t a curse sets Phil on a path of self-improvement. He does good deeds, reads classic literature and learns to play the piano. He saves a few lives, a few broken bones, a wedding (check out Michael Shannon as the Wrestlemania-loving groom!), and who knows what else when it’s all said and done. He can’t save everything, though, as evidenced by the homeless man (Les Podewell) who dies that day no matter what Phil does. Some things you just can’t change, and that helps Phil to be appreciative of the time he has and not to waste it.

And he doesn’t waste it. He’s spent, likely, years in this timeloop, learning all about this town and its people, getting to know and to care about them. He knows their rituals, their habits and even their deeply held desires. He knows Rita, too. “You like boats, but not the ocean. You go to a lake in the summer with your family up in the mountains. There’s a long wooden dock and a boathouse with boards missing from the roof, and a place you used to crawl underneath to be alone. You’re a sucker for French poetry and rhinestones. You’re very generous. You’re kind to strangers and children, and when you stand in the snow you look like an angel.” And more than just knowing her, he’s grown to truly love and honor her, as only someone who’d spent a lot of time with her could. But he’s also learned not to pressure her or rush her. He may not be able to have her forever, but he can love her all the same, and he can keep that love for himself because it is so precious. It is at this point, when he’s redeemed his soul in this way and learned true empathy and compassion, that he gets to see tomorrow.

There’s just nothing that isn’t sweet and touching and important about the primary narrative of Groundhog Day. Yes, a lot of it is silly. Stephen Tobolowsky is silly as Ned Ryerson. (Bing!) The senile old ladies are silly, as are the entire cast of characters dilly-dallying around town. The groundhog is silly. The entire premise of the holiday is silly. And silliness has been Bill Murray’s stock in trade, like, forever. But by being silly it also amplifies the absurdity of life itself, an aspect of the human condition that largely goes unexamined. Groundhog Day is saying that sometimes life is painful, sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s depressing, and sometimes it’s not. Sometimes you can bend the world to your will and sometimes there’s nothing you can do. Sometimes nothing makes sense. Sometimes everything is silly. It’s all just part of being alive. And while we’re alive, we should make the most of it. Live life to the fullest, be our best selves, and we will be rewarded. That’s what Groundhog Day is really about, and it is perfect.