it takes backbone to lead the life you want...

Isn't that true for everyone including myself? But I wonder how many of us really are living the way we want to. May be just a handful. I must confess even I am not doing it though I constantly dream, hope, pray and try to do so as soon as possible. I often wonder what's all the fuss about living life your own way, be what you want to be and things like that. Well what's so good on the other side? But there must be something that makes us think of that side. May be we can feel liberated, we can feel free , we can feel alive. There surely must be something.

In Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road(2008), set in the America of early 1950s post WWII, the young and beautiful April(Kate Winslet) is swept off her feet by the young, charming and equally handsome Frank(Leonardo DiCaprio) at a party. So are formed the Wheelers. The respectable, enviable and ideal couple in the neighborhood.

Frank Wheeler and April Wheeler stay in the much envied Revolutionary Road in a nice big house, with manicured lush green lawn living the great American sub-urban dream which many aspire but only a few actually experience its bliss. But was there or is there any thing called the American dream? If there was one what was it? If there was one was it and can it be only in America? And do people really experience this? What do we call happiness and what do we need to be happy? The movie explores all this from the point of view of both Frank and April long after their early marital bliss and it is as relevant for our time may be even more than for those those times.

It starts off with a lousy local theater play in which April plays one of the parts. The play is an embarrassment to Frank, who overhears someone say in the audience - "thank God, that's over". It is that bad. April knows the play went bad. On their way home in the car, Frank starts over whether April's fantasy ambitions of becoming an actress after such a bad show which was not his fault is realistic considering they have 2 kids now. Both of them rip each other apart in the middle of the night with their brutal talk that cuts through them.

Its evident things have gone bad since marriage for these two. The romance, the passion has gone. Frank wakes up to a clerical job he detests from the look on his face. But resigned to fate and bereft of even an iota of emotion he attends to it like a dead man lost in the maddening crowd. He has to play husband, father and family man after all. His face speaks volumes about his current state. April, meanwhile does the house, helps the kids. Her anger is more visible and palpable. Day in and day out in the same bloody house having nothing to do all day. If Frank was in April's position, even he would have shown emotion. April thinks about their current state. While cleaning the house, she goes through old photos and sees a photo of Frank at Eiffel Tower. Something sparks in her.

Meanwhile Frank, left with making sick jokes on his job, beds his colleague in a seedy motel. He returns home only to find his wife and children have a surprise on his birthday. That's how lonely Frank has become. He can't even remember his birthday. Heart strung by his family gesture, Frank feels guilty. April then pops the question to him. She asks why not they go and live in Paris as this is what Frank always wanted. Frank laughs off the idea at first, tied down by job, career, kids future, society and peers. April convinces her that he does not have spend his life over a sick job in US. He could finally take time and find what is it that he actually wants to do. She says its their life and its their right to lead the way they want to without caring for outsiders.

Frank weighs up the options and finally agrees to move out. April is delighted. They actually start living dreaming of their move to Paris. They feel happy. They start planning and go about slowly informing their neighbors. As in one terrific scene when they both drop a bombshell on their friend Chep and his wife who can't quite understand. They both feel the magnitude of Frank and April's move only after they leave when they look at their own miserable life and console each other thinking they are still better than Wheelers. And so it continues. The Wheelers are visited by their friendly neighbor Helen, her husband and their son John, mentally ill eccentric maths genius living in asylum reeling under electric treatment. Frank tells them of his move. Helen is stunned. She looked upon them as role models for their locality. John is not and asks them why. Frank says there is nothing left in the hopeless emptiness in their lives here. John connects with them and is proud of them. Frank and April feel vindicated, overjoyed and make out passionately.

As the D-day nears, April hesitantly reveals to Frank that she is 2 weeks pregnant, but literally begs Frank to continue with their shifting plan. Franks remains quiet. He pulls up a bad joke in his office which as fate would want impresses his bosses and they offer him a pay hike and a new post. Frank starts to really think now and have second thoughts. April senses Frank's getting cold feet and confronts him. They have bitter very bitter argument. Frank finds out April's been trying to forcefully flush out their unborn child on her own for the sake of Paris. Mad over this, Frank questions April's motherhood and love for her children. April begs to him she will have the child if they can have it in Paris. She asks if he has the guts to get away from his job he hates so much and start afresh. At this point Frank says "it takes backbone not to run away from your responsibilities" to which April says those words. Frank does not relent and says they can't have the baby in Paris. April, devastated, tries hard to pick herself and move on, but cries over her life. Frank agrees to take the new post.

Slowly they reinform their neighbors about their cancellation. One day Helen arrives, with her husband and John as well. Frank informs them. John is confused and he can't take it as he had admired them for their principles. He starts a brutally honest argument with Frank, rips him apart and exposes his double standards and doesn't favor April either who he thinks is equally responsible for their miserable state. Frank almost smacks John only to be stopped by Helen. After they leave Frank and April continue to fight until she runs away to the nearby woods as he threatens her and returns very late in the night.

Next morning, Frank ready for his new job is surprised to see April neatly dressed preparing breakfast for him. He is all choked up to speak. April quietly serves him. Frank loves the food and leaves for work hesitantly. April washes all the dishes and then she breaks down crying. She tries to give herself an abortion. She is admitted and finally dies leaving Frank and their two children. Frank is even more sad as he knows she did this to hurt herself and him for not going to Paris. He now works at an even boring job, looks after his children and reflects over what he has lost.

Though the movie talks about marital problems, it moved me like no other. It showed why should we live like we please and what happens if we do not. I am exactly at that stage in my life where I have to make a choice which will decide how I am going to live. I do not want to make the wrong choice. I am faced with same question. Do I choose the easy option and live a settled life or do I take the hard pill and do what I really want? I would be exaggerating to say this movie exposed the flaws of taking the former decision but it definitely ticked off my mind. I wouldn't want to look after 20 years from now and say I should have done this. I will take the hard pill. It easier said then done but I am slowly trying. Its better to fail at what I want than succeed at what I don't want. I know everyone is faced with this moral dilemma of choices all the time in their lives. Our life is a reflection of all the choices we make over the course of it. I hope people get the courage, as they say, to always take the path less traveled.

Kate and Leo are so good in their parts that it feels like they are not acting. Leo is especially amazing as the slightly coward Frank. Kate takes the hysterical nature of April to new levels. Though in just two scenes, Michael Shannon stunningly plays the mentally ill John who is the mirror to their lives. He is the catalyst. The sets and camerawork reflect the Americana of the 50's. What sets this film apart from other marital dramas is the that the lead couple either have complete love or complete hatred for each other. The fights are unlike anything I have seen. They are so frank, brutal, edgy and tense that vindicates the maxim - words can break one's heart. Worse they try to speak the truth which is always bitter. The claustrophobic nature of their lives and fights in the house is really unsettling. May be that's what happens to people who are not happy with their lives. They get desperate and start losing their sense of calm. May be it is a reminder to take stock of our lives.

To quote Robin Williams doing a John Keating quoting Robert Frost -
"Robert Frost said, "Two roads diverged in the wood and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."

Till next time - movies, movies and movies...

malkovich, malkovich, malkovich...

Originality in present day cinema is a rarity. Adaptations and remakes and sequels and rip offs seem to the flavor of don't know how many seasons. I wonder why originals are so hard to find now in cinema. Maybe because it is so hard for us to think of mundane things in a different way let alone out of the box ideas. May be it's the business side. Who wants to tear one's head over some insane idea when there are stories ready and begging to be told. But all those adaptations, remakes, sequels, ripoffs were actually of original ideas that literally soared as the imagination of the creators went wild. An idea small or big is priceless and its power is limitless. If there is one guy in cinema who thrives on mind bending originality every time it has to be the writer and director Charlie Kaufman. HE'S THE MAN.


Being John Malkovich(1998), Charlie's first film as writer, superbly directed by Spike Jonze is a movie and dare I say, for me is the definitive original movie precious than any big blockbuster. It outrageously combines fact and fiction, real and the imaginary worlds so convincingly that there is no way to differentiate between the two. And NO - it's not the matrix kind of mumbo jumbo filled with special effects where we have to break our heads. It's purely about people and their emotions, fears, eccentricities, things they love and hate the most. It shows the real and side of people which is a bittersweet pill to swallow.

Craig(John Cusack) is a failed middle aged puppeteer. When was the last time we saw a lead role have the profession of puppetry. He is a total failure only in the commercial sense but artistically he and his ideas are the real deal. Charlie Kaufman strikes the first blow subtly indicating the ugly fate of being an original in the sea of copy-cats. Craig does not believe in theatrics and showoff. He shows true side of people and life in his performances. Probably that's why he's a failure. He despises the guy who apparently rules the puppet world and thinks the guy's performances are cheap, second rate, mundane and monotonous. But Craig is not without failings. He is desperate to show his work to people, be successful and famous. But right now desperate, married, unemployed, too fragile to believe in himself, he performs sick and wicked puppet shows on the street and gets public's wrath rather than their love and money.

His nagging wife, Lotte(Cameron Diaz), an animal lover having turned their house into a zoo with all kinds of animals in cages, is desperate to have children with him. When Craig refuses saying his priority now is his career, Lotte hen pecks him about his profession and asks if he could ever get a real job. Frustrated and resigned to fate, Craig eventually seeks out the so called 'real jobs' in the papers and to his surprise gets one quite easily. His job is of a file arranger in the very very old Dr.Lester's Lester Corp located on the 7 1/2 floor (between 7 and 8 floor) of Mertin Flemmer Building in NYC. How's that for a location which itself has a delightful background as shown by flashback. And such a floor in such a building really does exist in NYC!!!

Craig finds himself uncontrollably attracted to his colleague, the sexy Maxine. He tells this plainly to her. She too plainly refuses the offer. With things looking a bit ok at home, Craig hopelessly tries for a chance to screw Maxine. While idling around in his office, Craig stumbles upon an opening on the wall, kind of portal, behind a huge filing cabinet, that appears hidden from everyone. Curious, Craig goes in screaming into - the brain of John Horatio Malkovich(John Gavin Malkovich)!!!. Craig can feel himself inside Malkovich. Malkovich does not know this. He is like a vegetable. After 15 minutes Craig finds himself out of Malkovich' s system and by the side of a dumpster. Craig, exhilarated by the experience, tells and shows the portal to Maxine, who though doesn't take the plunge, sees an opening for both. They place an ad in the paper of 200$ for 15 minutes of being john malkovich using the portal in their own office.

People queue up in flocks. Most of them are the everyday guys. Another blow by Charlie, we are obsessed with celebrities, their riches and their lifestyle. We feel liberated reading about them and given a chance we would sure want to be like them, if not them. So Maxine and Craig hit pay dirt. Craig, overcome by emotions, tells about this to Lotte and asks her to take the plunge which she readily agrees. Before diving in Craig introduces Lotte to Maxine and Lotte dives in, giggles, chuckles and feels at home. When she comes out, she is desperate to go for another ride but Craig refuses. Does everything looks alright for Craig? Not at all.

Craig asks Maxine if he could screw her now. She says only if he was John Malkovich. Another blow - people don't want to love a nobody. That tips him off and he asks her to go on a real date with the real John Malkovich when Craig plans to arrive into John. And so, they go out on a date. And Malkovich is really smitten by her. Craig arrives in him. They go to John's place. John and Craig wildly make out with her. Craig is filled with ecstasy. Craig and Maxine keep doing this and once Lotte asks for another dive. Reluctantly Craig agrees. So Lotte's goes into John on a date with Maxine. They again make out but this time Maxine enjoys it all the more. As Lotte comes out, she tells Craig she finally found her true self, that she is in fact a man in woman's body and she and Maxine love each other and she is for a sex change. Craig, stunned, lashes out at Maxine who simply chucks him away. Maxine starts to frequently go on dates with John and calls Lotte. to get into John. Maxine and Lotte love it.

Hurt and angry, Craig devises a cunning plan in his bid to get back Maxine. During one of Lotte's rendezvous, Craig locks her up in the cage with the animals and he goes in for John that night. Maxine doesn't realize it. Craig, so angry, as they make out, does not want to come out of John. He sees it is finally possible to control John completely. But John undergoes wild sensations in his body and says weird things. Craig jumps out of John. Paranoid, John smacks Maxine for the truth. Malkovich tails Maxine and finally finds out the horrible business being run by Maxine and Craig. So Malkovich lines up in queue to go inside himself!!! Which he does in fact and what happens then is beyond imagination.

John comes out and is scared and hopping mad by what he has just seen. Meanwhile Craig plans for another night. Maxine expects Lotte, who has got off the clutches and goes to Dr.Lester for help. Craig goes in, makes out with Maxine, who now knows it is Craig and not Lotte. Dr.Lester finally reveals the ugly truth. He introduces her to a lot of very old people and tells they all are more than a hundred years old and the reason they all are alive is because of the portal. They have been jumping from one vessel to another vessel all this time. Another blow, people in general are afraid of old age and death. John is their vessel now to stay alive and that he has matured and they would have to go in on John's 44th birthday. Lotte tells him Craig has now taken over John completely. Lester and his oldies look terribly worried.

Craig, now in John's body, convinces Maxine to get married to him. Craig decides to use John's popularity as an actor to pursue his dream - puppetry. Craig makes John change his profession which stuns the world. But he stuns the world too with his dazzling puppetry and literally reinventing the art. He achieves fame and fortune. Craig's soul finally seems to be at peace. Maxine is now pregnant, but is drawn away from Craig/John and she thinks more and more of Lotte. Craig senses thid distance and as John's 44th birthday draws close, Dr.Lester with Lotte captures Maxine and threatens Craig to kill Maxine if he doesn't leave John's body. Craig refuses. Lotte and Maxine reconcile, embrace, dive together into the portal and come out. Maxine reveals to Lotte the child was conceived when she was inside John and not Craig. They decide to live together. Another blow, real love can't be stopped. Craig left alone now finally decides to leave John and is back to being a nobody. Just when John feels he is back to his own self ,all the oldies enter into John and take over him as they wait for their next vessel. Seeing Maxine and Lotte's love, Craig once again decides to go into John and make Maxine love her once again.

What happens next is like a thunderbolt. It is so bittersweet and ironic just like our lives and yet so creative and logical that when all the pieces add up that the end result is like a sumptous, delightful meal. The movie is like pandora's box. You can't guess what's coming at any minute but everytime you will feel that had to come but only after you have seen it. The ending left me exhausted and scratching my head but eventually I was supremely satisfied by what was on offer. The magic of the movie is in the hands of Charlie and director Spike Jonze who never overdoes any of the numerous twists and turns, though it would have extremely tempting nonetheless. All the actors carry their vision superbly.

For sheer originality, do yourself a favour and watch it.

Till next time - movies, movies and movies...

when was the last time you saw dave boyle?

This question asked by FBI detective Sean Devine(Kevin Bacon) to ex-hoodlum Jimmy Markam(Sean Penn) about ordinary guy Dave Boyle(Tim Robbins) from a physical point of view in the climax, haunts and scars each of the once-upon-a-time childhood buddies emotionally and pshycologically, especially Dave, ever since that fateful day in their lonely neighborhood street in crime infested Little Boston, when as 11 year olds, the three of them playing hockey, engrave their names on the cemented sidewalk as a mark of friends for life, get questioned by two guys and the little boy Dave is forcibly taken away by them in the back of the car as his two friends watch in vain.


Mystic River(2004), by the great actor-director Eastwood, an adaptation of the same best selling novella by Dennis Lehane, is a powerful, explosive and a stirring tale about fate and about all possible human emotions along with the horrors of having an abusive childhood and the consequences of not getting treatment for it.

On that fateful day Dave was picked up by two peadophiles disguised as cops and was molested by them. When he is found and returned back, Dave is left only in physical form. That was last day the three childhood friends were together. Evidently Dave, too small and too afraid and too ashamed to speak out, goes into a shell, keeping the harrowing experience to himself. All of three of them go their seperate ways from then on.

On that day on the the sidewalk Jimmy, Sean engrave their names but Dave's is incomplete and so is their tale. Now fate has decided to bring all three of them back together through a tragedy that has happened to one of them. Ex-con and store owner & local don Jimmy, the hard case of the three, an over possessive father of his nineteen year old daughter, Katie, with his late first wife is worried over her sudden disapperance on the big day of communion of his two little daughters with his second wife. Sean, the smart one of the three, now an FBI detective, and husband to a wife who with their new born baby has left him, gets the case of a murdered young girl who could be Jimmy's daughter. Dave, the quiet one of the three, in same neighborhood as Jimmy and still good friends with him, as usual plays baseball with his young boy, but has had a rough night the day before, as he returned home with blood, cuts and bruises and confessesed to his ultra vulnerable wife that he had fight with a mug and he might have killed him which send jitters to her when she looks in the morning paper but doesn't find news of any mug's body.

Brendan Harris, despised by Jimmy, son of 'Just Ray' Harris, conmate of Jimmy and traitor who had once turned Jimmy over to the cops, loves Jimmy's nineteen year old daughter, unknown to Jimmy, who when getting to know through Sean that her daughter has infact been murdered explodes in an uncontrollable rage. Sean and his partner start the investigation. Jimmy starts his own with his conmates and promises to hunt down and kill her murderer. The first finger of suspicion points to Brendan Harris by the murder weapon, a gun, used by his father during one of his robberies. Also, Sean finds out Dave was present in the bar when Katie and her friends were partying on the night of her murder. On questioning Dave, noticing his bruises and cuts and his wife Celeste, literally on the verge of a breakdown internally fearing the worst, Sean is forced by his partner to make Dave the prime suspect, which Sean isn't quite convinced about.

What follows might be a police procedural on the surface but then the layers keep getting added. Jimmy is the Godfather to Dave's son. When Celeste sees Dave, unusually calm during Katie's funeral she almost freaks out. Dave tells vampire and wolf stories making himself as the prey at bedtime to his son and relives his nightmares in darkness. Finally Celeste listening this confronts him and Dave breaks down in a terrifying outburst recounting his nightmare as a boy and how he hoped and prayed for help while the wolves were having fun with him. Celeste is stunned by this revelation and at that moment feels threatened by Dave.

Owing to his partner's over smartness and trying to jump the gun way ahead, Sean and him lose the plot on Dave as they are tangled in their own plan. Sean now demands his partner to go ahead with Brendan Harris as the prime suspect as they are not left with any choice. Jimmy, grieving incontrollably over his loss on finding out Katie was going to elope with Brendan, curses and blames himself for her death. Jimmy's partners conducting a parallel investigation tell Jimmy the cops had taken Dave in for interrogation. Celeste having nowhere to go, now and forced by her uncontrollable urge to confess, tells Jimmy she might left Dave for good and also tells the inevitable which drives Jimmy insane.

Now the cops are on Brendan Harris's trail and Jimmy and his partners are on Dave's resulting in a stunning climax of revelations of startling nature not so much about who the killer is but about about friendship, loyalty, brotherhood, guilt, power on the banks of the Mystic river in Boston. Here Sean asks Jimmy the question to which Jimmy recounts their terrible childhood incident and says now how he hoped he was the one to be taken away not Dave so that Katie would never have been born and she would never have been murdered.

Even on finding the killer there is no victory for anyone in the end. It is not so simple. Life just moves on. The killer is revealed not like a suspense trick precisely because this is not a suspense movie. It is about how twisted our decisions can be in the worst of circumstances. The movie is explosive not because of some high octane stuff but of simmering tension lying undercurrent almost from the first frame. It is really unsettling.

What makes this movie work not the screenplay, which is quite good, but the pitch perfect direction of Eastwood and the remarkable acting by his team. Eastwood, himself, having played numerous characters who don't say much, knows the power of silence, restraint and understatement, expertly allows his actors to do just that wihout ever going over the top. There is lot of grief, pain and anger in the characters but none of it involves constant shouting and crying. Most of it stirs inside them with occasional outbursts. All the actors breathe their characters because they are allowed to do if I may say so. The three best performances would be Sean Penn, as Jimmy, ruthless hard boiled ex-con on the outside, but with a soft core like a family man, superbly shows the guilt for being responsible for his daughter's death. Marcia Gay Hayden, as the anxiety prone, tense Celeste, who loves her husband Dave, but doesn't show unflinching loyalty towards him as a normal wife would do. Finally Tim Robbins as Dave, carrying the baggage of an abusive childhood, brings alive Dave and his horrors. He reminds us of missing out on youth. It is a reminder that victims of such terrible acts must be treated by counselling immediately even if they don't want to. The rest of the cast round it off superbly.

Mystic River shows us the best and worst in humans.

Till next time - movies, movies and movies...