Revolution Road

I think it’s perfectly possible for human beings to spend a large part of their life convincing themselves that they’re happy,” Ms. Winslet said recently, speculating on why it is that Revolutionary Road will resonate with people so deeply. She was perched on a sofa in the Waldorf Astoria, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and ashing elegantly into a bottle of water. “Ultimately, when reality kicks in and you dare to allow yourself to think that you might actually be living a life that you haven’t planned, or living a life that you don’t want to be living and feel trapped in, then that’s when your problems begin. I think for human beings to feel trapped and isolated and lonely in a life that they thought they were happy in … Well, it’s just a terrible, terrible place to be. I think everyone has been in that place—even if they tell you they haven’t, I think they have. I think there are more people who have been in that place than people who have been blissfully happy forever I’m a big believer that life is diamond-shaped,” said Mr. Mendes. “Horizons expand and they contract. I think we’ve all at one time or another realized without really knowing it that they’re contracting … and how did that happen? You can’t choose who you marry because you’re married. You can’t choose whether to have kids or not because you have kids. You can’t choose where you live, because you’ve already chosen where you live, and these choices have been made, you know? You wake up and you wonder how I did I get here? It’s a 20th-century malaise expressed with incredible clarity with this book. I think people can relate to it on the level of that moment when, whoever you are, you look at your partner and think, who are you? Who is this stranger who is living in my house? I think that absolute shock of sharing your life with someone who is on some level a complete mystery to you whoever you are … I think it’s universal I think the country and society makes a promise to its people at a very early age that anything is possible,” said Mr. Mendes. “A country that promises can kill people with possibility and potential. Can kill people with the constantly dangled carrot of, life should be better. Life could be better. You deserve more. You are entitled to more.” Mr. Mendes pointed to a moment in the film when April realizes she’s no different than her neighbors. “If you’re good-looking, the world promises you something, and then you lose your looks,” Mr. Mendes continued. “If you’re talented enough to get into a top university but then don’t manage to get the job you want, the world has led you to believe that you are an X when in fact you are Y. At one point, we feel so superior to the people around us, but we’re exactly the same. Everyone is sitting in their own house feeling superior. It’s a very modern idea, that somehow you are the lead character in your own film of your life. But in everyone else’s, you are way in the back and your face is obscured by shadow.”There are huge numbers of people who say to themselves, if it wasn’t for this, this and this, I’d be leading this whole other kind of life,” said Mr. Haythe. “And the drumbeat for women to have children is still really strong. There’s this sense of musical chairs; if you don’t get one when the music stops, there’s this anxiety so you grab a chair before the music stops and then you have to live with that person for the rest of your life. For all it’s 1950s-ness, Revolutionary Road is as resonant in 2008 as ever.”