This faithful adaptation of the 1961 novel by Richard Yates is a fairly bleak study of oppressive suburban conformity in 1950s America, and the perils of trying to dream your way outside of it. The Wheelers are played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, who famously played the couple in Titanic. (Kathy Bates is also in both films.) In fact, it almost works as Titanic II, extrapolating how their lives might have evolved had Jack lived, married Rose and settled down to have a family. Suburban malaise is expertly depicted, with a sense of desperation and emptiness always at the edges of their wealthy, comfortable existence. From the outside, they are “special” – the “perfect couple” – but the rigid gender roles and social expectations of their time and place form an invisible prison they both rage against in different ways. Ultimately the unrelenting hopelessness of it all does become a bit overwhelming, even though that hopelessness is extremely well imagined.
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