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Oscar Nominees

This will be the first year that Dan and I will not have seen most, if not all, of the Oscar-nominated films before Oscar night.  In the past, we have found that throwing our own votes into the mix spices things up.

This afternoon Dan and I saw Revolutionary Road, based on Richard Yates’s 1962 book of the same name.  Despite a few acting glitches (we think that perhaps since all the actors seemed to be a little “off,” it might have been the fault of the director; we’re not sure), it was a riveting view at a disintegrating marriage.  The overall theme was what does a couple do when they realize they’ve settled for the predictable and expected one-house-two-kids-front-lawn type of suburban dream.  They have two choices: continue their humdrum life and hate every minute of it or escape the known and attempt a new thing.  Find out what they’re really capable of, what they’re really meant to do in this life.

I won’t give away anything, for that would ruin your viewing.  But I wanted to comment on this aspect of married life, this commonality that exists in the beginning, and hopefully, in the middle…and the end.  There’s one scene in the movie where April (Kate Winslet) is talking to a neighbor husband.  She’s bemoaning the fact that she and Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) were going to be “wonderful in the world.”  They were going to be something, do something.  Now, this is a rhetorical question, but I’m curious.  Dan and I have thought this very thing.  We’ve wanted to gobble the world up.  We’ve wanted to matter here on earth.  We’ve wanted to experience and live and laugh and cry.  We’ve wanted it all.  Does every couple think this?  Or is this just us?

I struggled, too, on this very subject, with providing an accurate depiction of Adam and Eve, as you soon will see.  Would they have chafed at their roles?  Would they have been embittered by the misunderstandings and the sadness that comes from not being understood?  Would they have overlooked such infractions and come together in the end, knowing that through it all, they still loved each other?

So, today’s question is: What is your heart’s deepest longing?  If you could do anything in the world, what would it be?  And why aren’t you doing it now?  Is there too heavy a price to pay, or are you afraid of failing?

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