A young couple living in a Connecticut suburb during the mid-1950s struggle to come to terms with their personal problems while trying to raise their two children.
Post-WWII Germany: Nearly a decade after his affair with an older woman came to a mysterious end, law student Michael Berg re-encounters his former lover as she defends herself in a war-crime trial.
A CIA agent on the ground in Jordan hunts down a powerful terrorist leader while being caught between the unclear intentions of his American supervisors and Jordan Intelligence.
Director:
Ridley Scott
Stars:
Leonardo DiCaprio,
Russell Crowe,
Mark Strong
A couple who is expecting their first child travel around the U.S. in order to find a perfect place to start their family. Along the way, they have misadventures and find fresh connections with an assortment of relatives and old friends who just might help them discover "home" on their own terms for the first time.
Director:
Sam Mendes
Stars:
John Krasinski,
Maya Rudolph,
Allison Janney
Vicenarian Richard travels to Thailand and finds himself in possession of a strange map. Rumours state that it leads to a solitary beach paradise, a tropical bliss. Excited and intrigued, he sets out to find it.
Director:
Danny Boyle
Stars:
Leonardo DiCaprio,
Daniel York,
Patcharawan Patarakijjanon
A young man in a small Midwestern town struggles to care for his mentally-disabled younger brother and morbidly obese mother while attempting to pursue his own happiness.
Director:
Lasse Hallström
Stars:
Johnny Depp,
Leonardo DiCaprio,
Juliette Lewis
It's 1955. Frank and April Wheeler, are in the 'seven year itch' of their marriage; they're not happy. April has forgone her dream of being an actress, and Frank hates his job. One day, April suggests they move to Paris as a means to rejuvenate their life.Written by
Huggo
It's never named in the film, but in Richard Yates' source novel, the play April acts in is Robert E. Sherwood's "The Petrified Forrest," written in 1935. In the play, the female lead, Gabby, dreams of leaving what she sees as a humdrum existence in the U.S. to move to France; this is also April Wheeler's dream. See more »
Goofs
Near the beginning, when Frank and April are standing alongside their parked car on the side of the road, a 1958 Buick passes by. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Frank Wheeler:
So, what do you do?
April Wheeler:
I'm studying to be an actress. You?
Frank Wheeler:
I'm a longshoreman.
April Wheeler:
No, I mean, really.
Frank Wheeler:
I mean really, too. Although starting next Monday I'm doing something a little more glamorous.
April Wheeler:
What's that?
Frank Wheeler:
Night cashier at a cafeteria.
April Wheeler:
I don't mean how you make money. I mean, what are you interested in?
Frank Wheeler:
Honey, if I had the answer to that one, I bet I'd bore us both to death in half an hour.
See more »
Crazy Credits
At the end of the closing credits: "For Mia and Joe." See more »
Easy Listenin' Blues
Written by Nadine Robinson
Performed by The King Cole Trio
Courtesy of Capitol Records
Under license from EMI Film & Television Music See more »
I went to see this at an advanced screener in Leicester Square last night. Kate Winslett chatted about the film on stage afterward. I went as one of those people who'd read the book and consider that source material to be amongst the best literature I'd ever read. I was wondering if and how the film could match up. My prior concerns were about how accurate the film would be. Well, there's nothing to worry about there. Mendes has created a near carbon copy of the book, the locations, characters and scenes are all exactly as I 'saw' them on the page. Nothing (as far as I could tell) is portrayed out of order, no extra characters are introduced, and no primary characters are dropped or altered. The acting is 100% perfect. The mies-en-scene is perfect. Absolutely nothing could or should have been done differently. So why not 10/10? The problem lies in the fact that Yates' novel is a literary one, much of the essence of the experience of the story is realized by Yates with just the right turn of phrase or choice of word. How does a director set about depicting or capturing this visually? I don't think he really can, he needs to use cinematic tricks and devices to inject resonance, the same resonance Yates achieves with that turn of phrase. But in being so (probably rightly) concerned about being true to the source material, the film somehow comes up a little flat as a film going experience, a sort of American Beauty without the crucial stylistic bells and whistles. Kate Winslett said afterward that (interestingly) it was she who had brought the book and the project to her husband, not vice versa and that it took some consideration for Sam Mendes to convince himself that he hadn't already told this story before, and by the final credits, I too was thinking just that, it felt like I'd watched a prequel to American Beauty, but without the pizazz and the rapture and the delight. So, the book, 10/10, the film, 8/10.
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I went to see this at an advanced screener in Leicester Square last night. Kate Winslett chatted about the film on stage afterward. I went as one of those people who'd read the book and consider that source material to be amongst the best literature I'd ever read. I was wondering if and how the film could match up. My prior concerns were about how accurate the film would be. Well, there's nothing to worry about there. Mendes has created a near carbon copy of the book, the locations, characters and scenes are all exactly as I 'saw' them on the page. Nothing (as far as I could tell) is portrayed out of order, no extra characters are introduced, and no primary characters are dropped or altered. The acting is 100% perfect. The mies-en-scene is perfect. Absolutely nothing could or should have been done differently. So why not 10/10? The problem lies in the fact that Yates' novel is a literary one, much of the essence of the experience of the story is realized by Yates with just the right turn of phrase or choice of word. How does a director set about depicting or capturing this visually? I don't think he really can, he needs to use cinematic tricks and devices to inject resonance, the same resonance Yates achieves with that turn of phrase. But in being so (probably rightly) concerned about being true to the source material, the film somehow comes up a little flat as a film going experience, a sort of American Beauty without the crucial stylistic bells and whistles. Kate Winslett said afterward that (interestingly) it was she who had brought the book and the project to her husband, not vice versa and that it took some consideration for Sam Mendes to convince himself that he hadn't already told this story before, and by the final credits, I too was thinking just that, it felt like I'd watched a prequel to American Beauty, but without the pizazz and the rapture and the delight. So, the book, 10/10, the film, 8/10.