3 reviews

An exploration of the darkness at the heart of the American dream but also of what growing into a marriage, growing into your own life is like anywhere, as the comprimises accumulate and the sense of anything being possible evaporates. It is also an extraordinarily acute observation about the dynamics of an imploding marriage.

This sounds pretty grim and yes it's not (as 'ant' complains, below) a feel-good movie. But I thought it the best I have seen for many years. The screenplay is so taut that, though leisurely, there isn't a moment's pointless panning around, and the acting by DiCaprio and Winslett - never thought in a million years I'd be saying this - is superb. Powerful but utterly controlled, buttoned down and never overplayed, and the chemistry between them is electric. DiCaprio especially excells in a portrait of a man trapped, he dimly senses, by circumstances but above all, by himself, and doing great harm to the woman he loved, but without sufficient insight or courage to pull back from it. How utterly I had misjudged him previously as just a pretty face.

Their final scene together is in my view, now among the classics.

Many of the supporting roles are also excellent and the claustrophobic comfort of 1950s middle class America is conveyed without being lingered over nostalgically. The score is likewise subtle and haunting.

I see others found it difficult to like the characters - yes, understand - but perhaps this is because they are a bit too like us for comfort?

So, not a feel-good movie - but one hell of a good movie.

erica 18 Feb 2009

I went to see this film with my girlfriend last Saturday and we came out feeling so dejected that we ended up having an argument, so be warned (and sorry Iz!).

Set in the mid 1950’s, Revolutionary Road follows the fortunes of April and Frank Wheeler (Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio), a young American couple who, after a few years of marriage, exchange their youthful dreams for a conventional suburban lifestyle. She stays at home with the kids, he commutes to the city, serving time in the same corporation where his father ground out his days. Despite their best efforts to anaesthetise themselves with heroic quantities of tobacco and booze, boredom starts to drive them apart. But on the same day that Frank drifts listlessly into a casual affair, April presents him with a disarmingly audacious idea: to move to Paris and start again. The rest of the film deals with the fallout of their grand plan: the sense of destiny and common purpose that revitalises their relationship, the incredulity and distress of their friends and neighbours, and the doubts and inertia that eventually begin to wrench them apart again.

Revolutionary Road is a lovingly constructed period piece with a great cast, but I found it very difficult to like. In fairness, the surreal blandness of the suburbs is wonderfully evoked, as is the devitalised world of the corporate office, but the characters are not easy to engage with, and despite the best efforts of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, they never quite come to life. This is partly because, by the time we meet them, they are already strangers; if the film had dwelt on the heady days of their courtship a little longer, their faded dreams might have had some poignancy. But it’s also because their dialogue is so heavily loaded with portentous statements that they often seem little more than mouthpieces, making some of their scenes look rather stale and theatrical.

This is an uncomfortable film to watch, especially if you go to the cinema for a brief respite from a drab, weary, conformist existence leavened only by the fantasy that there’s still something special about you! But that in itself does not make it a bad film. Where it really fails for me is that it doesn’t offer even the faintest hint of redemption, just the morbid prospect of death by instalments. :(

ant 13 Feb 2009

Notable because it sees Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio reuniting for the first time since Titanic, as well as being the first movie in which Winslet is directed by husband Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition), Revolutionary Road is the story of April and Frank Wheeler, an idealistic young couple who find themselves becoming strangers to each other as their lives play out on Revolutionary Road, the archetypal bland suburbia of Einsenhower's 1950s America. Saddled with two young children, the Wheelers see an 'emptiness and hopelessness' in the conformist, uneventful lives they have fallen into and despair at their splintering dreams. April, who harboured dreams of acting, is forced to make do with performing in pitiful local productions; Frank is riddled with conflict at being stifled physically and creatively in an office cubicle, but increasingly attracted to the financial security it affords. The pair become so disenchanted they decide to emigrate to Paris, to discover themselves and live away from the mundanity of the US suburbs. When April falls pregnant again, their plans unravel and their previous antagonism towards each other escalates rapidly. Both embark on affairs and one night stands with people they don't care for, and fire barrages of poisonous verbal abuse at each other as they try to work out how their lives panned out the way they did.

This is the story of a marriage dissolving; each fail to realise the expectations the other places in them but the time and society they inhabit doesn't seem to offer them a way out of their misery. We only have to look at Kathy Bates' Mrs Givings and her husband to see what the future might hold for the couple. There is nothing new in this indictment of the 'American Dream'; it could easily tell the story of American Beauty's Lester Burnham's parents, and there's a certain degree of inevitability to the plot. However as the story reaches its finale, there is much for the audience to marvel at. The anti-romance is performed savagely by Winslet and DiCaprio, whose talents were somewhat wasted in the saccharine and overblown Titanic - you can't help but wonder if they relished going at it hammer and tongs if only to put paid to the memory of their previous sentimental pairing. Where Titanic was huge and sprawling, Revolutionary Road is full of the claustrophobia of too-tidy living rooms and identical front lawns, with neighbours and friends constantly impinging on the couple's need for emotional space. Winslet and DiCaprio express this feeling of entrapment very well, and DiCaprio is especially good as a man lacking the insight to make sense of his actions. His performance is notable not only for this, but also because it is so very generous to Winslet, allowing her to mine issues of feminism, motherhood and depression enough to step out from the mahogany furnishings and into the centre of the camera time and time again. Winslet is well, Winslet - she was made for April's '50s wardrobe and she imbues her character with a sparkiness and zest which makes up for April being a bit of a bitch to Frank at the start. You can excuse her nastiness just as you can his trite excuses for his infidelity - both are deeply unhappy. However, it has to be said: the pair are not the most likeable of characters and the theatrical style Winslet has serves to distance you from proceedings, meaning that the ending's impact is less powerful than intended to be. There's something a bit 'stagey' about the direction too. Although Mendes' lush style of film-making is beautiful (check out the rail station scenes for a lesson in how to direct crowds with symbolism and grace), its flawless costumes and lighting contribute to the sense of an idea of tragedy rather than a full blown feeling, which is why I couldn't bring myself to completely empathise with the characters and have a good cry at the end.

However, for all its predictability and polish, the Wheelers' story still resonates. Economically, we live in a much more turbulent time than them, with many clinging to often monotonous jobs to retain a sense of security, just as Frank does, to the detriment of what we once held dear. The story of Frank and April is a warning to us all about the roads our choices can take us down and how very far from revolutionary those choices can be. As a look at a young relationship turned sour there's also a lot to make you think, about how you perceive a future with someone and how 'true' that belief really is - and what that can do to your partner. A technical and intellectual film, if not as heartfelt as you would imagine.

Lindsey Davis 8 Feb 2009