SUBURBAN DISCONTENT: AMERICAN BEAUTY AND REVOLUTIONARY ROAD

Until I sat down to write this review, it hadn't actually occurred to me that Sam Mendes directed both American Beauty (1999) and Revolutionary Road (2008).  I remembered that he was responsible for at least one of them, but I figured I was getting myself confused and couldn't remember which.  So that wasn't why I decided to write this joint analysis — honestly, I just happened to watch both films within a week of each other, and I was struck by how well they complimented each other thematically.  And now... that makes sense.  Both are films book-ending the era of American suburban expansion, examining jaded, former idealists — and taken together, they add up to a unique statement on American suburban ennui.  I wonder where Sam Mendes lives?

I already agree with the angle Mendes seems to be honing in on, but I suspect it isn't terribly important to what's going on here.  These films aren't about the suburbs being good or bad on their own.  They never attempt to demonstrate that suburbs are culturally bankrupt compared to other modes of living, or inferior to cities, even if their inhabitants are shown in a harsh light  These aren't films about societal sustainability — they're about cultural sustainability.  Mendes falls upon the suburbs as a symbol of a lifestyle that was becoming quintessentially American around the time of Revolutionary Road, and by American Beauty's era, had established itself as the status quo.  In another sense, the suburbs are simply a metaphor for failed American idealism.

Back before I realized that both had the same director, I was especially struck by how much these movies are inversions of each other.  Revolutionary Road is set in Connecticut in the 50's, and follows a couple (Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio) forced to settle down because of their kids.  They are a pair of vaguely-artistic self-appointed outsiders; they consider themselves better than the system, and want to move to Paris to regroup and figure out what their calling in life is. Friends of the couple consider them immature and slightly crazy for wanting to pack up and leave — like many idealists, DiCaprio's character seems to have no idea what he's running to or what he's running from, and that's where the trouble appears.  After all, 50's America was a time of finally embracing normalcy, when suburban societal rhythms were being established and America as a whole was transforming into a middle aged version of itself, rich and ready to pay for reliable comforts and picket fences.  On its own, Revolutionary Road is a fascinating look at the underside of an era when media, advertising and government were bizarrely united in portraying a simplified, sterilized image of regular American life.  "Normalcy does not inspire happiness" could be the tagline of either of these films.  American Beauty takes place presumably at the same time it was filmed, the late nineties, and once again develops around a married couple who appear normal, who try to act happy, and are neither of those things.  It's another story of a marriage falling apart, another warning that one day you might wake up and out-of-nowhere realize how miserable you are. Both stories spiral toward tragedy due to miscommunication and discontent — or maybe inevitability.  On the surface, these films would seem to more or less make the same statement, but it's the differences in tone that captured my interest — like I said, they serve as book-ends, not only to the way culture changed (or didn't change) in the five decades between their characters, but also in the decade separating their creation.   

American Beauty is very much a 90's movie, both in its setting and feel — flippant, jaded, sarcastic.  Everything is slightly tongue-and-cheek, yet with that undercurrent of anti-corporate, anti-establishment cynicism that cropped up after the Reagan era but never congealed with the focus of the 70's punk era.  It's no fluke here, and the cynicism may not all trace back to Mendes.  While rewatching Beauty, I was struck how close in tone it is to another movie from the same period: Donnie Darko.  These movies wouldn't seem to have anything in common on the surface, but if you strip out the metaphysical sci-fi from Darko, the rest is strikingly similar in tone and ideology.  It's the era, not specific filmmakers, of course. That cynical, middle-finger sense of humor can be found in other 90's movies like Office Space, Clerks, Fight Club, and so on.  A lot of the material in American Beauty could have been even darker than it was, if not centered around such a relaxed, enjoyable actor as Kevin Spacey.  Yet compared to Revolutionary Road, Beauty seems tame, almost a comedy.  There are fewer sinister events in Revolutionary Road, up until its ending, yet the film feels much colder. It lacks humor; its characters seem doomed — there's an almost apocalyptic air to it, as if innocent young America were ambling along obliviously into decades of chaos and war (well, okay.)  That the story is so simple, the character's struggles so domestic, only makes it seem more tragic.  Decades later, America had suffered plenty, and suddenly the same suburban discontent is skewed from the other end.  The same unanswerable questions about marriage and happiness and success — suddenly it's not that you're looking ahead and seeing dark clouds on the horizon, you're looking back, thinking, "Oh, whatever. That sucked.  F**k it."  It's a perspective uniting both the cultural background of the movies, and the characters themselves: in Revolutionary Road, the couple is young, eager, looking forward to life; in Beauty, they've endured a thankless marriage for years, and are bored with their suffering.  Even their young daughter has already become resigned, ready to run off with a boy who shows some hint of unconformity and passion.

It's probably suggestive that the dread Road builds around was best captured in the 00's, despite it serving as a period piece.  The mood is straightforward, haunted, capturing the feeling that something big has changed and god knows what those changes might mean.  The suburban lifestyle was well established by the 90's, but that feeling of despair over mere angst has reappeared in strength these last few years.  Except this time, it isn't a sense of naive idealism that's failing us — it's the ability to survive through apathy and sarcasm.  And not in a good way.  We found no relief in the 00's, in the honest, unadorned tone of films like Revolutionary Road.  By the end of the movie, the characters don't really know how to react — they simply are where they are, and there's little they can do about it until their lives return to something that appears normal.