Revolutionary Road

Is there some misnomer/irony in the title? - A picture of comfortable 1950s middle class suburbia called 'revolutionary' road? A good phrase to sum up the Wheelers suburban nightmare is one of them says "We bought into the same delusion." They have each other and children and a comfortable lifestyle and no apparent money worries and yet are desperate for fulfillment. April harboured ideas of being an actress but, as is shown, this may have been another dream of hers like the family going to live in Paris. She is obviously intelligent but is stifled in domesticity - putting out the garbage, doing the laundry. You even get the impression that her children were 'by accident' and because it was expected of her. Frank, meanwhile, appears bored with an office job in the same company his father worked for. They have it all and seem well liked and yet barely like each other - the only time they appear happy is when they believe in their unrealistic dream of escape. This was a period of rampant consumerism and, as today, adverts selling a middle calss suburban dream, but as the Wheelers discovered, it was just an illusion/delusion. Within themselves and the bigger suburban dream sold to them they believe that their middle classness can free them - why not move to Europe? - Until friends and neighbours question why they are going, how April will magically acquire a good scretarial job and Frank will 'think of something.' One of the neighbours calls the idea "immature."

The link I have chosen is from The Observer:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/feb/01/revolutionary-road-review-winslet-dicaprio

It reiterates the 'seemingly placid, self satisfied surface' of the 1950s, when actually there was both political conformity (the McCarthy communist 'witch hunts' etc) and a social conformity after the disruption of the War years and certainly April's neurotic desparation reminded me very much of Betty Friedan's phrase "Is this all?" (The Feminine Mystique) in their clearly defined gender roles. Another thing the review highlighted was the fact that both Wheelers think they are somehow special, when in fact they are not. Some people even give them that impression but, like the marriage/twokids/white collar office job/nice suburban home/wife with glossy hair and nice frock/all mod cons, is an illusion, a lie, which is shown in the voice of conscience and truth which is the mentally ill John and at the end when 'friends' voice an opinion that they weren't the right sort of people. The truth would appear to be that is you really are special and are not a drone, then you don't live in the American 'burbs....