A Sweet Life Gone Sour

I’m supposed to feast on another RomCom (romantic comedy) for my February Mush Marathon but I could not resist watching REVOLUTIONARY ROAD. My sister-in-law had a “dibidi” at her apartment. When I found it, my immediate reaction was “Ooh! Can I borrow it?” and she said, “Sige… di ko type yan… boring. Mas maganda pa yung Titanic nila!” I chuckled. Obviously, my sister-in-law isn’t exactly a film connoisseur. She’s just your average movie-goer. It’s not her fault.

But personally, I think comparing Titanic & Revolutionary Road is probably the LAST (and silliest) thing you could do. The only thing I liked about Titanic was James Cameron’s obsession with the authenticity of the tragic voyage – from the hull down to its china. The love story was practically like a sinking ship. It was mushy right. So mushy that it felt like a soggy banana mash was being shoved into my mouth. It was “cute” and “nice” the first time but after seeing it again for the nth time (a ‘90s thing to do) you get to realize more and more that there aren’t really any subtexts to be read and there aren’t even metaphors at play to make this film even remotely “deep”. The only depth one could encounter is the bed of the Atlantic Ocean.

And this where the irony begins… While my sister-in-law thinks that Revolutionary Road was just a “boring” husband and wife story compared to the seemingly exciting romance of Titanic, the reality is (as always) what looks spectacular on the exterior is nothing but fluff (Titanic) while the one that has a mundane premise actually has more “depth” (Revolutionary Road).
Unlike Titanic whose love story plot came from the mind of a director who was famous for nothing more than his Terminator movies (go figure) Revolutionary Road was an adaptation of a 1961 novel by Richard Yates. The story is set in the mid-50s – the rise of suburbia – and it’s about a young couple Frank & April Wheeler: About 30 yrs old; Married with 2 kids… and in typical 50s dynamics, the husband goes to work in an office while the wife stays home to bake pies. The problem begins when the wife in the middle of her dishwashing chore gets an epiphany – THERE MUST BE MORE TO THIS DOMESTIC LIFE!

I have always been intrigued with stories/movies set in the 50s. Hollywood has depicted the era many times but the ones that always leave a mark on me are those that center on the paradox that is the 50s Homemaker. The one that I loved best before Revolutionary Road was one of Julianne Moore’s films – The Hours, where she plays housewife Laura Brown who secretly despises her mundane daily life which includes baking a birthday cake for her husband. She lives vicariously through her favorite novel Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway” and then one day goes “Sylvia Plath” – leaves her son and goes suicidal in a motel room. She decides against it though and instead goes home, serves the perfectly pretty home-baked cake to the family, and just when you think everything’s okay; that she has come to her “senses”, she eventually takes the bus and disappears… forever. She quit, just like that.

Frank and April shared the same suburban prison. In Revolutionary Road, the Wheelers, most especially the missus had this restlessness – a desire to be part of the world and not just let it go by, which she translates to Paris. Mrs. Wheeler thinks that Paris would be the best place for them. It’s a place they think where they can exhaust their “potential”. In April’s words that would be “For Frank to be able to think about what he really wants to do while she would work and maybe pursue her acting.” When they told this to fellow suburban neighbors, they couldn’t quite understand what the Wheelers were talking about but nevertheless they took it all politely. So what’s in Paris that’s not in the US? The Wheelers argued that the cost of living there was far cheaper… and most especially it’s where they feel that they can be ALIVE. It really sounded very whimsical but given that they were two idealistic people, it was easy to romanticize everything. Let’s leave suburbia for bohemia! Paris just seems to be only way out of this mundane existence. So at first it was a pretty good plan until came Frank’s big promotion and April’s unexpected pregnancy. Suddenly Paris becomes a question at least for Frank while it becomes an obsession for April which later on causes the demise of their marriage and a couple of precious lives.

When watching the film, one could easily fall into the trap of taking sides – Frank’s or April’s. Whose fault was it? Who really caused the tragedy? As I have told you earlier, I am always curious about the walking time bomb called “the 50s Housewife.” It’s pretty clear that this generation of wives wanted to wear the pants but were the given the apron instead. They wanted to be in the boardroom and not in the kitchen. Remember this was the generation of mothers who smoked, drank beer and took cough syrup even when they’re pregnant. Well of course there was the limited medical information at that time but seriously was “good health” that really unheard of? What I’m saying is these women were clearly very ahead of their time. Abortion was not even THAT big of an issue. So if you think your grandparents are conservative – think again!

It’s just so ironic because while the 50s housewife wanted to be anywhere else but the kitchen, don’t you notice that more and more wives and mothers nowadays would rather stay home? While Frank & April abhorred their manicured neighborhood, more and more couples and families nowadays are buying into the landscaped promises of the Grass Residences of SM and all those Real Estate developments in the outskirts of the city. My husband and I asked ourselves recently “What are we working hard for anyway?” The answer: to buy a house & a car, be able to travel, afford our cable & internet, pay for our insurances, and eventually send our kids to good schools (if we ever have one). In short, we also admit to have our own version of the white picket fence dream. On the flipside, we might be able to fit in the Wheelers’ world more than they could.

You know what I really find problematic about Frank and April’s marriage? I don’t even blame the times. It’s really more about the lack of God in their marriage. Because the truth is, if April & Frank were Christians, and if they were obedient to the biblical portrait of marriage, then the 50s would have been a perfect era for them to play those roles. Submission would have been “natural”. Back then, there was no necessity for a double income household. The husband’s earnings could take care of everything. Aah! How I wish it would be the same today. These days both spouses would really have to work. And interestingly, there are really a lot of women now who are earning more than their husbands. April would have liked to be 30 in 2009 and not in 1955.

I tried to imagine myself in April’s shoes. And while I admit that I’d rather be home and be the “perfect” homemaker, I agree that doing the dishes over and over again could sometimes spark that tiny nerve of dread in my mind. Like April, I also get a lot of my epiphanies while I’m in front of the sink. My kitchen has this large window and a lot of times I’d find myself drifting away in my thoughts (which you all get to read here on my blog site, hehe) while staring blankly at the parking building that’s standing next to our loft.

And maybe that’s why most wives nowadays prefer to stay at home. We all have easy access to the world through the Internet. Who needs to go to an actual office when you can be productive in your pajamas? So maybe if only April had some internet connection at that time, I really think she would not have gone ballistic about doing the dishes every day… because she would probably have a blog where she could just vent out all her rants and raves. Haha. And you know what’s more ironic about it? Frank’s big promotion that made him bail out of the Paris project was actually about selling a very new type of business machine called “the computer”. I really find that funny. If only April knew what that thing could do in the future.

There are times when domestic life especially when it’s new really does feel like “playing house.” And although I still feel giddy in calling myself a Honeymoon Homemaker, life at home can’t be all that sweet. Sometimes after you’ve practically turned the house over for every speck of dust, it’s tempting to wonder if I’m missing out on something out there. Have I really given up my dreams? My ambition? Could I be April? Maybe if I didn’t have Christ in me that would be possible. Frank and April’s problem was just really about the oblivion to THE REAL PURPOSE of their life… Their restlessness was just really about being lost in this world, like any other person out there who has not found the Truth.

The movie was really a reminder for me to stay in the right path. I used to agree that it’s not the destination but the journey that counts. Although Frank and April set their eyes on Paris, it wasn’t really a DESTINATION. It was just part of their prescription for “living.” They didn’t really have solid goals. They just want to LIVE… and FEEL IT. For them it was all about the journey too. But now things have changed for me. When I received Christ, I learned about my ultimate destination – HEAVEN. And I’m happy that my husband, being a Christian himself, shares the same destination too. Of course we do have earthly plans, and we try to enjoy what this life has to offer us as much as we can but we are not going to kill ourselves if we don’t get to do everything. The sweet life doesn’t have to turn sour. God’s word is the spoonful of sugar that makes the medicine go down.