Desperate times, desperate measures

Courtney Hunt's debut film "Frozen River" is a minor miracle - who on earth funds this kind of film anymore? Especially if the film is a bit of a downer, considering it's lower income protagonist (played by a solid Melissa Leo) is a mother of two sons who needs to secure their new house as her husband has disappeared (presumably to Atlantic City) with their savings. She meets up with a Mohawk woman from the nearby reservation and together they bring illegal immigrants across the titular river into Quebec (I think). This is not a thriller though, and one should not be fooled by the cover blurb by Tarantino who calls it a great thriller. No, this is a character study of two women, both with much to lose, who will do what's necessary to keep going, even as the viewer understands that they are caught up in life narratives that do not end in grateful resolution. It's a low budget film, and the digital camera work serves to enhance the immediacy of the characters' crises. It's brave film, nothing brilliant, but worth sitting through.

Road to Ruin

Sam Mendes's "Revolutionary Road", based on the acclaimed novel by Richard Yates, is an incendiary take on the mundane vacuum of suburban life. This is the best film Mendes has yet made; anyone who holds "American Beauty" in higher regard needs to urgently revisit both films and be honest with themselves. The "Titanic" team of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet here destroys the romantic myth they helped propagate in James Cameron's opus; Frank and April Wheeler may have been happy at some stage, but we don't get to see that. What we see is, a mere seven minutes into the film, a significant marital blowout that sets the tone for the rest of this beautifully shot drama.

The acting on all counts is superlative. Many suspect that Winslet's Oscar win earlier this year was more for this film than "The Reader", while DiCaprio continues to build an impressive repertoire ("Aviator", "Departed"). Appearing in only two scenes, well known character actor Michael Shannon, playing an apparently mentally 'unbalanced' mathematician, delivers an award worthy performance as a brilliant man who cuts straight through the veneer of suburban joy that his own parents desperately cling to.

This is a more accomplished film than "Slumdog Millionaire". Why did it not get any Oscar love? Maybe the recession is partly to blame; "feel good movies" are awarded while those movies that force the viewer to seriously take stock of their life are ignored. Each scene in "Revolutionary Road" is spiked with the potential for destruction, and it is awe-inspiring (in a George vs Martha kind of way) to see the leads work with that potential. Although set in the 1950s, the film's commentary on marriage, the illusion of romance, the need to work to maintain that illusion and the utter risk-aversion in contemporary life rings mercilessly true.