2008, USA/UK
Drama, Romance
READ THE REVIEW AT The Desert Sun.
Remember at the end of Titanic when the audience glimpses photos of Rose's adventures, inspired by her lover's request to live life to the fullest? That was a fairy tale. This is the reality.
Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio reunite (along with Kathy Bates) for the first time since that fated voyage for director Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road, based on the 1961 novel by Richard Yates. The two play 1950s Connecticut suburbanites Frank and April Wheeler who could not imagine a more horrible punishment than their safe existences. Shackled to a white picket fence and two kids, they have become sidetracked from the Bohemian lifestyle they envisioned when they first met.
Mendes returns to American Beauty territory of suburban dissatisfaction, with Thomas Newman's plaintive piano following closely behind -- the same composer who shadowed the disorder within the households of Little Children, in which Winslet dug deep into a character searching for a better alternative. In Revolutionary Road, she provides another impressive performance as a woman attempting to ignore the boundaries of the era.
Constantly looking ahead to a happier future, the Wheelers refuse to live in the moment for fear of admitting that they have settled. On screen, their romance sparks and implodes within a few scenes. They are miserable. Every day he joins the sea of emotionless gray suits working in the city, and she observes the uninteresting cookie cutter houses and families that surround them.
To their friends, they are peculiar. All the more so when they proclaim that they will move to Paris and allow April to support the family while Frank finds himself. For them, this is the turning point that rejuvenates their love and reignites their verve for life. For everyone else, this is an absurd, irresponsible dream.
In fact, their friends are stupefied at the notion and almost consider them mad. The only person who finds value in their decision is their friend's son, John (Michael Shannon, Shotgun Stories), who was committed for his uncontainable passion. Despite repeat shock therapy, he still fails to filter pleasant chitchat in preference for blunt analysis. As Frank and April begin to waver in their decision, he becomes a physical representation of their conscience.
Their faltering comes by way of comfortable temptations when Frank is offered a promotion, ironically for his new cavalier behavior that resulted when he decided to seek his utopia. He works for the same company that his father did, a fact he repeatedly mentions as the crux for his unhappiness. While Frank decries the futility of the position, his friends congratulate him for following in his father's footsteps -- translating Frank's words into what they understand to be logical.
As Frank becomes more tempted by the golden apple, he questions his wife's resistance. She cycles into brutal honesty followed by terrified resignation as she attempts to portray agreeableness despite a cracking shell. They search for dangerous distractions, as if to cut themselves as a reminder that they still have blood coursing under their skin. Yet without taking the leap off of the safe path, their travels will always return them to the same road, indistinguishable from that of their neighbors and undoubtedly not revolutionary.