REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
PARAMOUNT
RELEASED 30 January 2009
What would have happened if Jack hadn’t sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic ocean in ‘Titanic’ and he’d gotten married to Rose and they’d bought into the American dream? ‘Revolutionary Road’ could almost be the sequel that never was.
Re-uniting the ‘king of the world’ Leonardo DiCaprio with Kate Winslet for the first time since 1997, they’re playing a married couple with two kids living the suburban dream in New York State. But Frank (DiCaprio) hates his job in the city, and April (Winslet) can’t stand knowing what her housewife life holds for the next twenty years. So April suggests they ‘up sticks’ and follow their youthful dream of living in Paris with April taking a secretarial Embassy job giving Frank the time to decide what he’d like to do with his life. Frank seems to be in favour at first, but fear of the unknown, a rising career (in a job he has no love for), and relying financially on his wife in the 50’s all deter him from taking the jump, with devasting repercussions for their idyllic family set-up.
With award nominations racking up at an alarming rate for our number one luvvie Kate, it shouldn’t go unmentioned that DiCaprio is excellent here. He captures frustration and bottled-up anger perfectly beneath his charming exterior. Miscast in ‘Blood Diamond’ as a bounty hunter, he jarred with me for the whole film. Cast correctly (as in here and ‘The Departed’), his performances are a pleasure to watch. Escaping from the shadow of teen idol ten years ago has been a struggle, especially as his face still has a youthful glow, but DiCaprio has proved his talent recently. I can’t ever remember a bad Winslet performance, and watching ‘The Reader’ and ‘Revolutionary Road’ on consecutive days, it’s perfectly right that she should be picking up so many plaudits for such differing, strong roles.
There’s another eye-catching cameo performance from Michael Shannon as a mentally unstable neighbour’s son, who plays devil’s advocate in the young couple’s lives with black comic effect.
The script (by Justin Haythe) is the biggest gift-wrapped present of scapel-sharp words given to two actors I’ve heard for a while. It’s sharp, harsh, and sad. The screen crackles as the warring couple throw verbal insults and truths at each other, and it’s horrible to see two people go for each other so bitterly. I did feel the virtual absence of the Wheeler’s son and daughter onscreen was a slight problem, because even though they do get mentioned occasionally (and seen briefly), Frank and April appear to be a childless couple most of the time. I’m not sure why this was, but it seemed to be a deliberate decision not to have them in the way of the husband and wife dynamic.
Director Sam Mendes (and Mr Winslet) has made the best film of his career since the hugely popular ‘American Beauty’, and for a book (by Richard Yates) that was written fifty years ago, it still pricks the same hopes and fears we all face today as our lives go from carefree, idealistic adventures to more mundane, pragmatic affairs.
FOUR OUT OF FIVE