Film Review: Revolutionary Road (2008)
DiCaprio and Winslet Reunite in Mendes' Top-Heavy Yates Adaptation
Adapting Dysfunctionality to the Screen
Many have praised Richard Yates’ novel “Revolutionary Road” for its unflinching view of the fall of the American dream in 1950’s suburbia – supposedly a model location for the nuclear family at the center of the tale, but instead their own private hell, and one frequently implied to be so for others more often than not. This picture-perfect lifestyle becomes a tool that divides communities and families unto themselves; husbands and wives resent each other as they thirst for an adventurous life, even as they cling to one with promises of safety and security.
In plot alone, this tale wrenches at the deceit and self-denial abound in this misguided world, like a scientist looking on with pity at the creatures beneath his microscope. Despite this potential, it’s an opportunity botched by Sam Mendes’ adaptation of the same name, a film that gets some right but much, much more wrong. (For a more in-depth discussion on the relationship between the original book and the newly adapted film, click here.)
Sam Mendes' Stiff Direction
Mendes’ 1999 directorial breakthrough and Oscar darling American Beauty was no doubt amongst the cultural impacts had by Yates’ original novel, so it’s some kind of bitter irony that this promising, frustratingly uneven filmmaker (who hasn't made a satisfying film since) has returned in some kind of full circle to the roots of his own creative gestation.
Perhaps a certain reverence for the material is to blame here, as Mendes’ own handling of it often feels bound, inflexible, too scared to move – an acolyte in frightened awe before the pulpit. This is less overly-polished Oscar pandering than it is simply unimaginative filmmaking, here a style that disservices itself at virtually every turn, gratingly pulling against the emotive patterns and tones of Justin Haythe's carefully pared-down script.
Great Performances in an Inexpressive Film
For a film that purports to engage such dirty, raw and festering emotions, Revolutionary Road itself feels sterilized, hermetically sealed, the cinematic equivalent of watching a balloon deflate slowly, agonizingly, through a microscopic pinprick. Delaying its own title card for an extended opening sequence that shows us the initial courting of our central protagonists, April and Frank Wheeler (Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, together for the first time since Titanic), followed by a disastrous night host to hateful arguments between the couple some years later, the film makes no mistake in telling the audience it’s in for one miserable ride. The rise is history and the fall has already begun.
In a rudimentary way, the roundly able cast successfully manages to engage the audience in the turmoil of it all. DiCaprio is good and Winslet is better, both taking some time to connect (with themselves, with the audience) but sometimes finding less than sufficient material to draw from. Their scenes as a couple are inconsistent, but become a dependable point of reference for the film's thematic weight. More individually affecting and memorable are Michael Shannon and Kathy Bates (another Titanic vet), who, through mirroring roles as a mentally unstable, reflect upon the self-immolation of the Wheelers with aching precision.
Even the best efforts amongst the cast, however, ultimately go to great waste, a pity given how tremendously Mendes is able to hone their abilities, even if he ultimately misuses them. Revolutionary Road drives home its “point” with such heavy, dutiful blatancy that there is quickly nothing left to explore or develop, like wheels spinning without traction. With a mise-en-scène that borders on clinical, the kino eye that regards these people is sardonic instead of probing, distancing instead of enlightening – a misguided effort to deepen the emotions of its audience that instead ends up merely oppressing them.
DiCaprio and Winslet in Revolutionary Road
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Winslet and DiCaprio in Revolutionary Road
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Michael Shannon in Revolutionary Road
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Revolutionary Road movie poster
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