Ewan Morrison: 'When I blew the dust from the old book, I found a key to a fraternity of devotees'

Published on Saturday 7 February 2009 18:32

I'M anxious about going to see the film adaptation of Revolutionary Road. Why? Because the book was passed to me by a dear old friend and, believe it or not, it was one of those rare novels that both reflected and changed my life. And not just mine.

On that day in 1992, when I blew the dust from the old paperback, I found a key to a secret fraternity of devotees who passed on the book to the chosen few, like a long Chinese whisper. In the last 17 years I've bought the book eight times, and each time loaned my copy to someone who then felt compelled to loan it to someone else and so on.

I never grumbled about the necessitated re-buying, as the book seemed to have a life of its own and seemed to defy ownership. In Australia I met someone who had a copy that had come into his hands through a friend in Germany who was a friend of a friend of mine from London. The copy in Sydney may once have been my own.

I worry that by being turned into a Hollywood product, the travel of the book may be over and its 'meaning' fixed in stone; that after seeing the film, the character of Frank Wheeler – the proto-beatnik, free thinker thwarted in suburbia – might be forever overwritten by the childlike good looks of DiCaprio. Or that Winslet's almost American accent may replace the shrill desperation of my imagined April Wheeler; a woman who feels trapped in the American Dream but knows she is part of it and cannot escape what's in her bones, as she screams: "Look at us, we're just like the people you're talking about. We are the people you're talking about!"

What I fear most is that the movie will destroy the latent message of the book. It could do this by telling the tale of two would-be bohemians struggling against the stifling conformity of 1950s America – a clarion call in the name of freedom and individualism. As most movie producers are baby-boomers and partied their way through the 1960s, it's most likely that this is what the film will be like. This is, essentially, the message behind every American movie made by this generation. It's also the core message of advertising since the 1960s: "Be free".

The way I see it, Revolutionary Road is not a critique of the 1950s, but of the coming spirit of the 1960s. Frank and April Wheeler destroy their marriage, their kids' futures and ultimately their lives by trying to be different. The tragedy is that they are pretty average, homely, unimaginative, unexceptional people. It is in fact their desire to be unique and free that destroys them.

Richard Yates poses a terrifying challenge to the modern world: "Perhaps not everyone has what it takes to be 'an individual'," he suggests, implying that to build an entire society on millions of competing egos is suicidal madness.

Revolutionary Road is a profoundly reactionary book (as all great works are) which attacks the false freedoms of the 1960s, all the rampant individualism and the me-me-me culture it spawned which is to this day a blight on our lives.

The question is: can Hollywood ever produce a movie that says "it's dangerous to attempt to be an individual"? Would that not undermine the movie system and the ideology that created it? My cinema seat is booked.

I shall wait and see.