To paraphrase David Letterman: Mr. Hollywood, the Wheelers are fictional characters.
In Revolutionary Road, which earned Kate Winslet a Golden Globe last night, and a movie which repaired her with Leonardo DiCraprio, the pair being famous for 1997’s Titanic, we will see a husband and wife pair, who live in Connecticut and (at least the husband) works in The City. Upon their 30th birthdays, they all of a sudden discover that their life just doesn’t do it for them, that there’s “more out there than this,” so they go off to “find themselves,” and predictably, they start cheating on each other, and the marriage falls apart.
In that, RR is even more fictional than regular fiction. To prove this, let’s do a little math and history.
A 30-year old person in 1955 was born in 1925. S/he was 4 years old when the depression hit, 8 when the depression peaked, 16 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He probably joined the military as soon as he could look old enough to pass for 17 years old, if not already 17, or else, he was drafted. He probably saw action either in the Navy or Marines in the Pacific or on the front lines in North Africa and/or Europe. He surely knew someone personally from his home town that died in combat. Back on the home front, she became a Rosie the Riveter, or definitely did some sort of work, during the War. She had a victory garden, and had to make do with rationed quantities otherwise. They were 20 when the War ended.
Plain words, virtually all of their conscience lifetimes consisted of poverty, hardship, paucity and sacrifice. So, if you fast forward ten years to 1955 when they’re 30 years old, and he makes enough money to afford a nice suburban house far enough away from the biggest city in the country to breathe clean air, not to mention a TV, full cabinets, full stomachs and a pretty new if not brand new automobile with as much gas in the tank as they could afford, relatively new furniture, they felt damned fortunate to have what they had, compared to their earlier life, and certainly didn’t despair over “something more,” they already had “something more,” nor did they try to go out and “find themselves,” they had already “found themselves” for years. That kind of mentality would be the province of their own children, who never knew depression and ubiquitous, all-out warfare, that being the baby boomers.
