From Titanic to Revolutionary Road

Bringing back the two stars from Titanic, the most iconic 90s blockbuster, seems like a calculated effort to get some free press, and to get people talking about a marriage melodrama. Even in 2008, that kind of movie for grownups was scarce. Of course, the making of Revolutionary Road is more organic than calculated. Star Kate Winslet got her then husband Sam Mendes to direct the Revolutionary Road script she loved, and got her old friend Leonardo DiCaprio to co-star with her. And it was fun to see Kate and Leo together again on the press tour, just like it was fun when they were both up for oscars in 2016 (she for Steve Jobs, he for The Revenant). 

But Revolutionary Road is more than just collaboration of two famous actors. For me, it's a film that could only exist with these specific filmmakers. It could have been made with Kate Winslet starring opposite another lead actor but so much of the emotional charge comes from her history with Leo. And not just that they were in a movie together but that they were in Titanic, a cultural behemoth so imposing that to this day people are still debating its artistic merits. Revolutionary Road is a spiritual successor to Titanic in a lot of ways, not just a cute callback. Because not only do we have Kate and Leo come back, but also Kathy Bates who played Molly Brown in Titanic. These three actors are playing roles completely inverted from their roles in Titanic.

Leo and Kate play Jack and Rose in Titanic, two star-crossed lovers. She's trapped in an impending arranged marriage with a violent abuser. He's poor, idealistic, and free. Jack is the one who shows Rose that there's another way to live, where she can exist for herself away from the restrictions forced upon her in high society. In Revolutionary Road, their roles are reversed. Kate's Alice is the one who encourages Leo's Frank to escape from their humdrum lives. Frank is more reluctant than Rose is, but he is the one who feels the pull back towards conformity. 

Frank wants out like Rose does, but he also resists doing anything about it when push comes to shove. Rose rejects the life she was forced to live, even without Jack. She chooses to abandon the comfort of wealth to live for herself. Alice is also more proactive than Jack is (though to be fair he doesn't get a lot of opportunity to plan a life). Some viewers get the feeling that Jack is all talk; Alice takes steps but perhaps she is delusional that all her planning will come to fruition. She also has to play to Frank's ego and self-importance while Jack plays to Rose's adventurous spirit and desperation for freedom. 

Some might say that Frank and Alice would be Rose and Jack's future had Jack survived the Titanic sinking. There is truth to that, because Jack could have turned complacent with a stable job and comfortable life. Rose wants the man that Jack used to be and still believes he can be the sexy dreamer she fell in love with. It's kind of a bitter read on the Titanic love story, which is naive but presented as sweet and hopeful. But Alice and Frank don't really deserve that origin story, do they? They are just two random people who met and tricked themselves into thinking they had something special. One can be similarly cynical about the romance in Titanic, but that film presents the love story as sweeping. So grand that it can sustain being the central force of the epic disaster movie. Revolutionary Road doesn't pretend that Alice and Frank are like the young, enthusiastic Jack and Rose, but rather funhouse mirrors of them. They have a red hot intensity, a passion that is both erotic and vitriolic. 

Kathy Bates in Titanic plays the nouveau rich Molly Brown who sees through the hypocrisy of old money. She helps Jack dress for first class dinner, speaks her mind, and is the lone first class main character who shows any kind of empathy or compassion. Molly Brown contrasts the stifling and oppressive old money society; she famously tried to save more lower class passengers, but was unsuccessful. Bates brought a brassy, endearing energy to her performance making an already likable character even more relatable and memorable. 

By contrast, Bates plays Helen Givings in Revolutionary Road who is Frank and Alice's realtor and friend. She places a lot of emphasis on having the right kind of couple live in the house she's selling, and is overly concerned with polite society, and being proper. Helen is revealed to be complicit in 1950s suburbia brushing everything under the rug, and just as hypocritical as the society that the Wheelers want to escape. Bates in her performance is so outwardly agreeable, yet there's a hollowness to her friendliness and self-delusion is all over face. Everything has to be just-so and any breach of that puts her on the defensive in a very ugly way. 

In both movies, Kate Winslet has sex in a car. In Titanic, she might be cheating on her fiance but that relationship is hardly one of love. Her relationship with Jack on the other hand is one of love or at least puppy love. Their lovemaking is culmination of their connection and courtship, and it's depicted as something seismic. In Revolutionary Road, Alice has a very quick fling with her friend Shep (David Harbour) and she doesn't even know why does it. Shep is in love with her--he thinks he's in the sex scene from Titanic--but Alice? I think she just wants to feel something, to do something to get out of her rut. It's a bizarre and completely unsexy scene, a direct contrast to Titanic. 

Kate, Leo, and Kathy Bates aren't the only ones who are returning towards something. This is Sam Mendes' second examination of suburban malaise after American Beauty. That movie, despite its success in 1999 and 2000, is a complete failure now. It has aged very poorly for many reasons, and I think Revolutionary Road fixes some of those mistakes. The 1950s setting helps to contextualize the "rich white people problems" narrative. The venom in the dialogue, the immediacy of the filmmaking, and ambiguity of the characters gives it more depth. One could read the movie with either Frank or Alice being "in the right" or neither. American Beauty is firmly ensconced in a singular perspective, which harms the film's longevity. Revolutionary Road is a better film for me without a doubt, and it is elevated by its connection to Titanic. Both movies can and do stand on their own, but together they inform each other in beautiful and illuminating ways.