Saturday, March 27, 2010

Revolutionary Road

Last night, Brady and I watched Revolutionary Road, a movie about a young couple in 1950s suburbia who are unhappy with their lives and unhappy with each other. Numerous married friends had told us that we should not watch this movie if there was any kind of fight going on between us because it is depressing and will make you hate your spouse.

Of course, Brady and I had a huge fight right before the movie which ended with me crying, eating a chocolate chip cookie the size of my head, and pouting in my office. The crying is not a big deal, I do that a lot these days. The other day I cried because the rug in my living room had a ripple in it and "looked like crap." Our fight was pretty stupid too. It started with me nagging that Brady wasn't building the crib fast enough and that he was not paying enough attention to the baby gear that I was so painstakingly picking out, making sure that it coordinates with our home's decor. He said he didn't care, as long as the stuff was safe and I lost it over his complete disregard for harmonizing colors and textures.



We watched the movie anyways. I can see why people think this movie is depressing about marriage. It highlights, what I think, are very common problems in marriage. The nagging, one wanting to talk things out while the other doesn't, jobs that aren't very fulfilling, etc. There were definitely a few scenes where we both thought, that sounds like us! In the end, you realize that Frank and April are hideously dysfunctional and while every marriage has its ups and downs, I don't know anybody that screwed up.

The part of the movie that really struck home for us was Frank and April's discontentment with suburbia and their desire to escape it. We live in total suburbia and while I don't completely hate it, I don't completely love it either. It would be easier to handle if we traveled more and could escape the confines of suburbia. I just get so sick of the chain restaurants, the mall, the need to be cookie cutter, the soccer moms in giant SUVs, and such. Brady is a total wanderlust and gets antsy when he can't travel. I am not as bad, but the fact that I have had two real vacations (not including weekend getaways) in the past four years is really annoying. But our traveling has taken a big hit. It's expensive, hard to take time off work, we have two dogs, etc.

I also hate the fact that I have never lived outside of Southern California (I count Santa Barbara as being So Cal for the most part). At least Brady had the guts to get out of the state for college. We have talked about moving to Chicago or the East Coast and just trying something different. But it is hard to leave friends and family for a place where we wouldn't have jobs or know anyone. Plus our jobs make it near impossible to move out of state. We would have to re-take the bar exam, wait months for results, and hope to get a job. While we are sad that we are stuck in California indefinitely, we have a plan. Baby Brady is not allowed to go to college in California, he has to go somewhere really awesome (crossing fingers for Chicago). That way we can visit him and get the hell out of Orange County every once in a while!

All in all, I thought Revolutionary Road was a good movie and made me feel good about my marriage. At least I know we aren't that screwed up!

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