Diane, TypePad threw a tantrum when I put this in a comment, so I'll have to put it in a post. And I would just like to say to TypePad, thank you so very much for "improving" your system. We're having such fun handling the dozens of new little hassles that crop up every day.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, Revolutionary Road. I haven't seen it either. But I was intrigued by the Weekly Standard review, which makes the case that the original novel was actually a satire of people like the Wheelers (Kate and Leo's characters), and that the problem with the movie is that it takes them and their petty problems seriously. Click here to read it.

Comments

[Diane Singer]

Thanks, Gina, I would have missed this review if you hadn't posted it. As an English teacher, I deal with students "misreading" texts all the time. But they're young and they're students, so it's not all that hard to understand. What does it say about the intelligence (or biases) of the makers of this movie that they completely missed the point of the novel!!! I thought the last line of the review was chilling: "This is a fatal misreading of April, one of the most interesting monsters in American fiction--a dynamically sexual, intelligent, and sharp-tongued woman whose odd indifference causes men to love her and causes her to feel no love for them or her children or much of anything. Her soullessness is apparent in the novel well before they move to the suburbs. Yates views her with pitiless eyes; the movie does little but pity her."