Well, this was a disappointment. Possibly the worst performance I've seen from Kate Winslet; something like the performance in Little Children (which seems a very close relation to this film in terms of "disillusionment") but without the clear motivations and connection to real feeling.
In Little Children Winslet is "not like the others"--she reads (!) and she's disheveled and not very suburban mom but she's got a clear hunger and she wants to eat life (and the neighborhood stud). She's a caged animal that will bite. In RR she's just a thing without feathers. (Hope that is hopeless?--there's a line in the movie about this somewhat, the "hopeless emptiness" of their lives.)
The movie presents itself as standard suburban ennui with "life failure 101" being the main drive for dramatic tension: Winslet's community theater fails (in the opening scenes--before the title sequence); DiCaprio is a replica of his "old man" working for the same company and getting nowhere. His ennui is "normal" I suppose--schlub who thinks he's more than he is but doesn't put in the effort--expects others to see it and hand it to him maybe. Time for a dalliance; but this too is really "normal" in this story. (And normal in our depictions of the desultory family man who works and doesn't really seem connected to the family.)
They have two kids but they're rarely seen--a real mis-step perhaps as one imagines having kids and moving to the suburbs IS part of the problem--but it's unseen and barely even commented on.
There are elements to the story I haven't touched on but they were so disconnected--by the screenwriter and director I suppose--that they seemed to have no relevance other than to be a narrative device inserted to clarify the "truth" of the scenes that didn't really carry any on their own. (Suburban life=bad and soul-crushing.)
There's the neighbors who are more "regular" and the husband there that pines after Winslet's character; there's the middle-aged realtor whose husband turns off his hearing aid when she speaks; the realtor's son, a once-prominent, promising mathematician who has gone loony--and speaks, Sybil-like, TRUTHS about our couple's inner lives, etc...
I'm sure the book must have been much better.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I'm not quite sure what to say about the movie, as I loved the book so much. It's hard for me to say that the movie was a disappointment because I kept filling in the backstory of the characters and scenes from my book reading. Having said that, I don't know that I would have enjoyed the movie nearly as much if I had not read the book.
I would disagree with Storm about his comment regarding Winslet's performance. Yes, her character is almost robotic, but this is the catatonic state April Wheeler has reached in her life. I thought Winslet's performance was very representative of the way I came to understand April Wheeler, and I actually found the subtle pieces of her acting in this film to be really impressive.
It was interesting to me that the kids were such a non-presence in the movie. Readers of the book feel their presence more through the thoughts of April and Frank, though they are very much in the background here too.
For me the movie seemed to be a jumbled attempt at telling the original story. I was annoyed that scenes from the book were mashed together in the movie, at the expense of really getting a firm grasp on any of the characters. I'm also not sure I like the alternative ending the movie took on. This is not a happy story, but rather a comment on a system of marriage and living that was not working for April and Frank Wheeler.
Verdict: Movie was disappointing and I longed for the depth I found in the book.
Well, maybe we just blame Sam then--if Winslett was acting in the way that Sarah was viewing--with the novel filling in all the moments that movie viewers are not convinced of.
The kids in particular are telling--ie, their absence in the film--as they would be a major stresser in a life for someone wholly uninterested in "family life". With DiCaprio's character not being as disappointed by this life as he lets on. Kids solidify wife and home while MAN can go to work and "play".
But all in all, we didn't really see or experience enough of the motivating factors that would make the performance understandable--catatonic is just plain boring when there's no visible reason for it. That's why the crazy mathematician is a kind of burst of energy in the movie--he seems to be the catalyst for her actions--he seems to be the "thoughts" the characters aren't sharing and he seems to be the voice that gives them their acting motivations.
Post a Comment