Revolutionary Road

Revolutionary Road

Revolutionary Road - Directed by Sam Mendes, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and Michael Shannon - Rated R




This film's look at relationships and suburban life is as brutal as Chigurh.



Revolutionary Road is the film about a suburban couple, Frank and April Wheeler, dealing with the problems of a troubled marriage in the 1950's. This is basically a two hour long movie about an extremely rough patch in a relationship, but there are deeper issues about suburban life in general and what is an acceptable middleground between being bold and moving to Europe to start over (which is the plan the Wheelers hatch early on) and staying in suburbia and learning how to make something out of that life rather than become encompassed by the surroundings. Depending on whether those issues sound interesting or too depressing for a film will determine whether or not you enjoy this one. I, for one, found it interesting enough to get past the more miserable aspects.

The idea of watching Dicaprio and Winslet argue for an extended amount of time may not sound interesting, but the script (adapted from the classic Richard Yates novel of the same name) handles their relationship so realistically that it makes it compelling. There were so many times when, during an argument, one of them would yell out exactly what I was thinking. Usually, bad relationships in movies are either too black and white, or too vague to be realistic. The Wheelers have problems and the audience is going to hear about them, but they are not simple problems. In other words, I cannot imagine the audience really taking sides in this one. Both Frank and April do questionable and deceitful things. This didn't make me hate both of them or anything, though, it just allowed me to understand them better. This film does not ahy away from delving into characters.

Normally, a movie that takes place in the 1950's will paint this picture of the perfect family and how great things were back then. Which is to say that character development is nonexistent since there is no such thing as the perfect family. So it's very refreshing to see the curtain pulled back on a 1950's suburb and see that people may put on their happy faces and be completely fake in social situations, but they still interact when they take the masks off, too.

Speaking of the 1950's aspect, this movie looks great. There is a great amount of detail in the clothing and the sets that really adds to the realism, which is very important because the viewer needs to believe that this is taking place in the 50's or the power of the story will start to deteriorate. That might be why I like the period aspect of this film, or it might just be my love of 1950's life. The constant smoking (even by pregnant women), the lunch break drinking, and the little bar area everybody has in their living room with an always filled bucket of ice. I don't want to go too deep with this since that is what life used to be like for some people, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that these people felt a constant need to drink to try and deal with the mundane lives they lived.



Era aside, these characters need something else to make them interesting: actors. Dicaprio has been turning in great performance after great performance and this film is no different. He fits naturally into the timeframe and he makes for a convincing, angry husband. Winslet is in the same boat. The only difference is she finally got the Oscar this year (though it was for The Reader, but it could have been for either film in my opinion). Kathy Bates does well as the annoying realtor, but it's Michael Shannon, who plays her mentally disturbed son, who shines here. He's basically the bulls**t detector for this film. Whenever he interacts with the Wheelers, there is this look of skepticism on his face and he points out what everybody is thinking. It's just fun to watch Shannon make everyone around him cringe.




Michael Shannon and the rest of the cast turn in entertaining performances, but I'm not sure I would call this an entertaining film. Once again, it may just depress some people, but I found it interesting. I can't stress enough about the other issues of this film. Mendes put in those meandering scenes of daily life for both Frank and April for a reason. And the score amplifies the mood of each of those scenes (in particular the shot of hundreds of businessmen, all dressed similar, slowly walking to their boring office jobs). I could go, but it's better to just watch it and experience each issue for yourself. You might not enjoy it, but it should make you think.

*I just wanted to add that if you are interested by this film at all, read the book. The book is able to delve into issues not possible on film, though this is one of the more faithful adaptations out there.

Eric Harris - www.canneltoncritic.com

Last updated: 2010-05-10 22:29:41 by user06

Double Bill: Revolutionary Road and The Crowd

Big dreams don't fit on small desks. Frank and April Wheeler (top) know they're just biding time in their middling, middle-class lives; Frank will leave that job of his and the family will move to Paris, where the cultured, not the moneyed, have the status.

John and Mary Sims (bottom) would be satisfied with the money. John is a mouse in the rat race, and he's got more plates to fill than his own. John's also a dreamer, just like Frank Wheeler; he longs to be somewhere else, but spends little energy trying to get there. With so much potential and so little success, both men are vulnerable to temptation, which at least brings a quick payoff. And what of April and Mary? What is the price of loyalty to such men?

Neither Revolutionary Road nor The Crowd give easy answers; but their lesson is a simple one. It's not enough to be better--you've got to do better, too.

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Last updated: 2010-04-13 03:32:36 by user06

Revolutionary Road (Sam Mendes, 2008)

***
USA

In order to warrant putting your name across one of the great literary works of a given century, you have to bring to it life, something fresh - something more. And Sam Mendes' adaptation is unquestionably something less. The context of the harsh idyll of 1950s Connecticutt and the notion of whether this is the culprit that has oppressed the Wheelers or whether the Wheelers have done their own oppressing but blame only their environment: that is, the crux of Richard Yates' wrenching novel - well, that is gone. The notion of Frank Wheeler being prematurely shoved into marriage and his dad's job, and of April Wheeler's life amounting to the perpetual crushing of a horrific cry of anguish. Fractions of these do translate, and there are glimmers of an authentic-seeming and telling dynamic between the Wheelers that hints at something bigger and shattering, but inevitably they are something of a pale copy. The majority of the film is pale, and also stiff.

Revolutionary Road

The hotly-anticipated reunion of Jack and Rose, aka Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

I give the movie: 3.5/5

The two of them never looked better. Directed by Winslet's husband, Sam Mendes, Revolutionary Road is about a 1960's sub-urban American couple's downward spiral into marital Hell and unbliss. If there is one kind of movie I hate, it is depressing movies, and Roadis certainly not a smooth-sailing one. But the costume and set-design is pitch-perfect; the supporting cast is great; however, it's the electrifying performances of the leads that are so captivating.

FINAL SAY:
When the film climaxes and you hear them utter "I hate you" to each other, you can literally feel the whole room ready to explode into a ball of flame. It is that intense, and it requires a hell lot of chemistry to carry that off. However, if you're feeling emo, don't watch this. Officially one of the most depressing movies ever.

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Wilson Ng - http://wilsoniscurious.blogspot.com/

Last updated: 2010-03-14 04:48:21 by wilsoniscurious

Revolutionary Road (2008)

This movie adaptation of the Richard Yates novel of the same name, was not well received upon released.  I’ve not read the book yet (give me a minute), but this movie felt like a punch to the gut. Kate Winslet was overdue for an Oscar yes, and as glad as I am that she won for THE READER, she really deserve it for her work here.  She will leave you devastated, specially towards the end.  Amazingly shot, the wardrobe, cinematography, set design; everything about this movie was perfectly crafted.  An emotional tour-de-force that you want to turn away from, but just can’t.

Revolutionary Road

Love comes skipping and life makes a fist. So be careful. The new movie Revolutionary Road is about a woman (not a couple, as some reviews may claim) who life kicks the shit out of. Her tragedy is romance; she wants life, but she gets married. Not that the movie is anti-marriage, or that the man she marries isn’t good to her; worse, it’s that she isn’t someone who should be married. Love fools her the way it fools everyone who winds up miserable or divorced, by saying: love will solve everything. But love is only the solution to wanting love. If you want something else…someone has to give.

In a quiet suburb of America sometime in the 1950s, Frank and April Wheeler live an idyllic, homogenized life. Frank is handsome, young and gainfully employed. April is beautiful, young and mother of two children. But there’s a problem: April is unsatisfied. She keeps reminding Frank how a life in the suburbs used to be laughable to them. She wants to move to Paris, where they can love each other, free of her doubts and his disappointments. She mistakes him: Frank can live in the suburbs, it’s only April who feels trapped. Still, she loves him fiercely, so she persists. She thinks he can live up to her love. But his love stops, here.

To play a woman for whom a man isn’t the answer is rare in Hollywood; to play a woman for whom children aren’t the answer is heresy. But that’s April. Kate Winslet has played several women who didn’t live happily ever after, but this is still among her finest work. April Wheeler is stubborn, angry, selfish and unrepentant. They’ll line up to call her a bitch, but I think I see what Winslet saw: she’s a romantic. If April were hardened to life… she’d be protected. But she feels too much. There’s a great scene, before the final tragedy, where April listens as Frank tells her about his work. He sketches the new computer he’s going to be marketing, and you can see April realise:that’s who is; a computer salesman. She’d thought all along that when she looked at him she saw the real Frank. But she saw herself. They were never both yearning to be free.

The man’s role in Revolutionary Road is a supporting role, though “undermining” would probably be more accurate. Leonardo DiCaprio uses all his natural charm to make Frank look like the innocent party, but right from the start he’s a wheedling son-of-a-bitch. Frank is a man who could talk for hours about how much he hates his workaday existence precisely because it doesn’t pain him. Not in the real sense. Frank is bored, April is despairing. He can’t see her despair because he’s never felt it. He keeps thinking she wants something from him, when of course – she has his love – she wants something for them. Every argument starts backwards for Frank because he’s trying to prove something April knows.

They’ll say this is Sam Mendes re-making American Beauty in the 50s. But in American Beauty the hero had all the answers, and freedom to act. This is what American Beauty would have looked like if Kevin Spacey gained nothing for all his scheming, if his wife loved him with all her heart… and she asked him to stay, and he spat at her.

Most movies tell us what we want to hear about love: that it’s The End. But the truth is: we go on being ourselves, in love or not, and we have to find a balance in love between one “I” and another. That’s not to dispel the myth of romance, only to recognise that lovers have other needs as well as love (what April would call “interests”). InRevolutionary Road, two lovers think that love is the solution to their dilemma, but the real solution is for one of them to give up. If they had been honest… If they hadn’t married… But they were young; their romance was invulnerable. They had life cracked.

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Revolutionary Road

After being tricked into seeing "Titanic," I said a lot of cruel, hurtful things about Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.  I was wrong about all of them and "Revolutionary Road" is the thesis statement in the argument against all those terrible things I said.  True, both actors have proven themselves many times over before this movie came out, but this biting critique of suburban life in the early 1960's is almost the antithesis of beautifully made yet vacuous love tragedy of "Titanic."  (Kathy Bates gets to redeem herself as well!)

    "Revolutionary Road" is a film adaptation of a Richard Yates novel by the same name.  It shines an intelligent and unforgiving light on the illusion of happiness created in suburban America.  Frank and April Wheeler, played by Winslet and DiCaprio, are a couple who are a little bit too intelligent for suburban life, but have fallen into it anyway.  Both are bored and unsatisfied with the lives they've chosen and are looking for something more.  Inspiration strikes as they revive a youthful dream of living in Paris and prepare to make good their escape from the tedium and shallow depths of their 'perfect' suburban home and lives on Revolutionary Road.  However, cruel fate steps in and they must make a moral choice to stay in their suburban nightmare or end April's newly discovered pregnancy, sacrificing their unborn child for their own happiness.   The drama is realistic and tense and the satire biting as the couple struggles with what to do.

     "Revolutionary Road" is, indeed, a masterful work.  The dialogue is incredible, the plot is thought provoking, the source material is, well, Yates, and Winslet and DiCaprio prove, once again, that they are not simply a couple of good looking faces, but, rather, great actors in their own right.  The best performance, however, was had by Kathryn Hahn, who plays neighbor Milly Campbell.  Young actors could learn a lot from watching the subtly of her facial expressions as she tries to keep the crumbling mask of happiness from revealing the utter desperation of a hollow and meaningless existence found beneath it.  Dylan Baker also puts forth a great performance as Jack Ordway, who refuses to play along with the suburban facade, speak the truth about what he sees, and is considered insane because of it. 

I was very disappointed when I didn't get to see "Revolutionary Road" in a theater, but the wait was well worth it. 

Brian
Ciné Critique Américain

Revolutionary Road

I have gotten a lot of negative flack for loving this very hard to love movie but some people love 'The Reader' and I love this movie. If you love a challenging film that doesn't pander to the audience and you love "Mad Men" then you might love it also. Based on one of my favorite books I have read in a long time "Revolutionary Road" I find the movie is a pretty great if not as great an adaptation of the powerful book. This movie set in the 50's is very stately and cold and is hard to embrace but I love powerful movies and the ending is powerful! It also has one of the best performances by an actress in a few decades by Kate Winslet. She is perfect showing vulnerability, bitchiness and strength as the woman married to Leonardo DiCaprio who is also great. This is Winslet's best performance in a long line of them along with "Little Children". This along with Charlize Theron in "Monster" is an iconic performance and I was blown away by her. Proof that this movie was not embraced was that Winslet was nominated for the wrong movie which is also more Hollywood safe "The Reader". Steppenwolf actor Michael Shannon also is great in a small part that is very memorable. The depiction of the 50's is flawless, the story is well transferred to the screen from the book and I felt an emotional connection to it. It's look at marriage is uncompromising showing how realizing your individual goals and dreams can be compromised. How communication is very important and how some people get married without coming to terms with how hard it is to have a successful marriage. I loved the book and I think the movie does an outstanding job of bringing it to life on the screen.

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Vincent Snavely

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD (2008)

BOTTOM LINE: Director Sam Mendes retreads the themes of his earlier masterpiece American Beauty in this film but without the biting satire, razor-sharp commentary or overarching themes that made that film work so well. Leo and Kate deliver some fine performances, but the film is clumsy and uneven in its execution and character motivations, with no defining statement or theme.

THE GOOD: “Revolutionary Road” has much in common with director Sam Mendes’ previous work on suburban life, “American Beauty”, although the tone is much more serious and the setting is now the more patriarchal 1950s where men where the central point of attention within the family. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, re-teaming for the first time since “Titanic”, do a fine job as Frank and April Wheeler who once had hopes and dreams in their youth which have now been crushed by the responsibilities of family life. Several dramatic sequences between the pair are riveting to watch, particularly as they sort through the complications surrounding their desires versus their responsibilities and the way the society around them at the time reacted to their wish to do something outside the box. There is an inherent tragedy at work in the story, and is highlighted by an effective musical score by Thomas Newman and lovely visuals by cinematographer Roger Deakins. The exploration of 1950s social culture, particularly within the context of the married couples of the time is of special interest, particularly looking at it from a 21st century perspective where the inequality between the sexes is not as pronounced in relationships as what it was back then. Another good point is the character of John Givings played by an inspired Michael Shannon, a man undergoing psychiatric assessment but unusually is the only character who speaks the truth to everyone in the film, no matter how much it might hurt.

THE BAD: There are two major problems with this film; the first is that Sam Mendes has already covered this material a hundred times better in “American Beauty” and the second is that the execution of the story is uneven and clumsy, without making any major statements. The heart of the story revolves around the dynamic between Frank and April but the inconsistent and changing motivations of these characters do not generate much empathy. The character of Frank comes off worse in this regard because he acts unwittingly inconsiderate to April who feels she has no choice but to nod her head and accept any criticism coming to her and reminders of her place as a housewife. Frank also has an affair with a girl from the secretarial pool at his office, which makes him look even worse and selfish when April comes up with a plan to give Frank everything he wished for in life. However, although empathy can be felt for April, by the end of the film, her motivations become inconsistent and a little crazy as well, including having sex with her neighbour, and then later dying as a result of her self-abortion of her third child. She wants to live life and in the end society convinces Frank otherwise, leading April to become upset to the point of mental depression, causes that might elicit empathy for April’s character but unfortunately do not thanks to the inconsistent direction by Mendes. You feel for these characters, and then they do or say something that makes them unlikeable. Frank can move from an idealist to a self-absorbed patriarch while April moves from thoughtful and considerate to selfish and unable to change. These inconsistencies ultimately stifle any point the film is trying to make; although you will see smaller points being made, you will not walk out of the cinema feeling as if you went on any kind of satisfying journey with these characters, nor come out with a feeling of what the film was trying to say.

RATING: 5/10

Todd Murphy <br />
http://www.allaboutmovies.net

Revolutionary Road

Adapted from a famous novel by Richard Yates, the film is set in the mid 1950s with Leo and Kate playing Frank and April Wheeler, a handsome upper-middle class couple who live in Revolutionary Road (That’s where title derives from) along with their two children.  People in the neighbourhood regard them as a special couple but behind the close door, Frank and April are two distraught individuals who are crippled by their inner struggles to find satisfaction in life. Frank has a well paying job that he resents while April is still lamenting her shattered dream as an actress. After a huge marital squabble, April tries to save their marriage by suggesting that they move to France where they’ll be free from the entrapment of their current conventional society. Despite Frank’s intial apprehension, he is soon convinced by her (Yes, we know who wears the pants here). Just as things start to look brighter, the couple is faced with an array of unforeseen problems and temptation which put their fantasy getaway at a risk.

Revolutionary Road is a classic beauty, it unfolds one plot point to the next at its own pace without being sluggish. Here, just like in American Beauty, Sam Mendes deals with the dichotomy of one’s internal conflict and his surroundings, an ageless issue with no definite answers.

This movie marks the first colloboration between husband-and-wife, Sam Mendes and Kate Winslet and the reunion of Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet. I’ve been anticipating this movie greatly just to see the brilliant on-screen couple. For the first few minutes I was watching it as if it tells of the afterlife of Jack and Rose, especially when Kathy Bates pops in. Leo and Kate acted their roles so naturally like it hadn’t been scripted and it was nostalgic watching them together again. I think the movie wouldn’t be as great if they had chosen different lead actor and actress. Also, Thomas Newman’s captivating musical score blends wonderfully with the film.

Revolutionary Road is a beautifully crafted piece of literary work. I know it didn’t even earn a nomination for best picture at the Oscar but I actually prefer it to Mendes’ award winning American Beauty.

As Mick LaSalle of San Francisco Chronicles commented, “Finally, this is a movie that can and should be seen more than once. Watch it one time through her eyes. Watch it again through his eyes. It works both ways. It works in every way. This is a great American film.”

I agree with him but if you hate anguish-filled, character-driven drama, this might not be your cup of tea.

P.S I love the film poster.

 
Mel says: 9/10 (Extra points for Leo and Kate)

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