"Revolutionary Road" (2009)

There is an air of desperation about the American dream. Frank and April Wheeler know this, yet they don't seem to care. Was this the closeted attitude of many married couples in the 1950's? Was the illusion of harmony, settlement, assimilation, even happiness, simply that - an illusion? It certainly seems the novel "Revolutionary Road"'s writer, Richard Yates, would think so. Yate's characters inhabit an era defined by a tragic perception of how married life should play out, or at least what it should "fill up" until something bigger and better comes along, if in fact it ever does.

"Revolutionary Road", for better or worse, is a period piece, and Frank Wheeler, like many other complex and nuanced male archetypes, is a character practically written with no one else in mind but DiCaprio. He seethes at time wasted and laments the reality that he may never get it back. DiCaprio's character choices never shy away from the intricate and the layered, even with material that peeps into the lives of two painfully everyday people. Frank Wheeler's journey and life becomes a dismal game of sink or swim, and this is the element that elevates the Wheeler's story from a simple period piece to a level of functioning as an effective and nightmarish cautionary tale. One of the most potent shots in the film is one that looks on as Frank succumbs to an ultimate pitfall of the mundane: He walks to work amidst an endless sea of grey suits and colorless faces.

Opposite Leo is Kate Winslet, who is equally powerful as a spouse thrust into the traditional trappings of married life, and into a role she cannot bear to maintain. April asks Frank with bewilderment: "Don't you miss the city?" to which he replies, "Nothing's permanent". The couple schemes to escape their mundane, "settled down" existence with a grand and clean getaway to Paris. Regrettably, that won't happen. The dream will die. "Revolutionary Road" warns those married men and women who forge on through unhappiness of their futility and foolishness time and again with the "plans" they lay out in attempts to salvage their miserable lives together. A looming fate of the Wheelers' unhappiness steers them forcefully to the brink of madness and fuels contempt for one another, yet they ignore it at their own peril, and isn't that the greatest nightmare of all?

Sam Mendes, a director familiar to themes of marital infidelity and American dissatisfaction in 1999's "American Beauty", explores this notion with a sensibility that's ironic given his British background. Perhaps there is something we Yanks in the states have yet to grasp that can be better understood from a foreign perspective. The iconography of white picket fences, neatly cut green grass and a quaint small town are the backdrop for raw, riveting performances channeled by nothing short of reality. Michael Shannon is highly substantial of "Road"'s tragic motif, providing commentary through the eyes of a mentally unstable man directed at the Wheelers' insufferable quarreling that rattles us to our core. Justin Haythe's writing is superb, each performance is emotionally upsetting but never overstated, and "Revolutionary Road" is a throbbing portrait of unsatisfied American hunger.

★★★☆☆ (3.5/5)

Cast/Credits

Frank Wheeler: Leonardo DiCaprio
April Wheeler: Kate Winslet
Helen Givings: Kathy Bates
John Givings: Michael Shannon
Milly Campbell: Kathryn Hahn
Shep Campbell: David Harbour
Jack Ordway: Dylan Baker
Howard Givings: Richard Easton
Maureen Grube: Zoe Kazan
Bart Pollock: Jay O. Sanders
Ed Small: Max Casella

DreamWorks and Paramount present a film directed by Sam Mendes. Screenplay by Justin Haythe, based on the novel by Richard Yates. Running time: 119 minutes. MPAA Rating: R (for language and some sexual content/nudity).