Revolutionary Road

I've got to confess that I've come to appreciate DiCaprio as an actor. I loathed him the first time I saw him (Romeo and Juliet) utterly despised him the second time (Titanic) and then very slowly came to appreciate that he was far more than a pretty boy, provided he was given the material to work with. He has it here, and he makes the most of the opportunity. His 1950's adman is a complex, conflicted conformist, and he plays it with the kind of subtlety I would normally expect from someone like Trintignant, Kingsley, or Day Lewis. I was totally sold on the character, and as a result, on the movie itself. Winslett is competent, if not compelling, but DiCaprio drives this film and makes it his. I read Yates' novel many years ago, back when I worked in advertising, and found it intriguing, even fascinating. I never expected to see it filmed, and if I'd thought about it I would have expected some grossly overwrought nonsense. This is by no means a great film, but its a good one, ... Read more

The status quo in Revolutionary Road is dark, depressing and inescapable. In stark contrast to many depictions of this era, this film captures a behind-the-facade view of a couple (Kate Winslet & Leonardo DiCaprio) who seem, outwardly, to be leading an idyllic suburban life in the 1950s. The acting is solid, but not extraordinary. I can't help but feel that I'd have enjoyed this film a little more with different actors in the lead roles. Winslet has proven herself to be a bit more of a chameleon than DiCaprio since their last film together, and she comes across as slightly more believable as a suburban housewife who longs to move her family to Paris to escape the role she feels forced to play in the suburbs of New York with her ad-man husband. At times, their pairing was a bit distracting, and their chemistry as a couple in love wasn't nearly as believable as one who grows to despise each other. As their dreams are shattered and their relationship spirals downward, their increasing... Read more

It took 47 years to adapt for the screen Richard Yates' celebrated novel of the struggles that a young suburban couple faces living within the constraints of Eisenhower-era conformity. Even now, the resulting 2008 film, as meticulously directed by Sam Mendes, feels so internally driven that the story may be better suited for the stage or even TV. In fact, it often feels a bit like an extended episode of the 1950's-set AMC series, Mad Men, although the arguments between the protagonists bring to mind similarly visceral set pieces from Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Adapted by screenwriter Justin Haythe (The Clearing), the plot focuses on Frank and April Wheeler, an attractive couple settled in a Connecticut suburb with two young children and seven years into a dysfunctional marriage. The time is 1955 well before professional counseling and divorce were viable options. The one attribute that the couple shares is the disillusionment each experiences with their daily lives... Read more

I just finished watching this. and i have to say i went into it not knowing a thing about it. i read no spoilers or no reviews, never read the book. all i knew was what the back cover said. now that thats out of the way, i was fairly disappointed. while the acting was superb by both Leo and Kate, the storyline lacked real emotion. I found it hard to sympathize with either character. i'm actually very torn here, i liked it but then i didnt. I love Kate Winslet, especially after seeing the reader, but that film had a much better story to it. i havnet read the book, so i cant give good or bad there, but this is a rather slow paced film. you need to be patient and be in the right mood, i enjoyed it, but probably something i'll never watch again.

This movie doesn't work. It's an intellectualized, staged conception of "quiet desperation." It doesn't look or feel like real desperation. I can't imagine real people arguing this way or shifting moods this way. It's a professorial view of life that feels as if it had been written from an ivory tower, while its author looked down at an expanse of suburbia from an academic distance. All the intriguing details are invisible; only the broad patches of pattern are apparent. So it sees only cliché. It sees the cliché that the 1950's were unbearably conformist, with husbands swimming upstream every morning to work like doomed salmon, while wives stayed home in crisp regiments of starched aprons. But if you had looked close and lived through the 50's, you would have found a very different, motley, messy reality. There is also the cliché of the real estate woman's son. Michael Shannon cast in this role does a very good job as the disturbed, truth-telling iconoclast. But again, his char... Read more

Wow....that's what I was left saying after I watched the final credits roll up the screen at the end of this movie. Between Kate Winslet acting like a certified, yet somehow sane, nut and Leonard DiCaprio seamlessly playing the helpless husband racked with his own guilt, I felt totally satisfied about spending my well earned[..] on this movie, twice (yes, twice). Now I must admit I think I've seen, like, one Kate Winslet movie ever before this, and I just recently started getting on the DiCaprio bandwagon after watching both The Departed and Blood Diamond in the same year (after that I was hooked on DiCaprio). But after watching Revolutionary Road, I was all aboard team Winslet. She was so captivating in this role, so emotional and raw and riveting all at once. This is one of those movies that you just have to see for yourself and derive your own meaning behind it. It just touched on so many different issues like love, the sanctity of marriage, forgiveness, rage, entrapment, lonelines... Read more

This was an excellent drama. It tells the interior story of an American family in the 1950s. Leonardo DiCaprio gives a strong performance as a successful Manhattan office worker trying to raise a family. Winslett portrays his wife, and their conflicting feelings about life are the focus of the movie. Frankly I think DiCaprio is underrated as an actor -- if his looks were more irregular he'd probably get more respect for his work. Winslett is pretty good in most scenes. The role that was doubtlessly the most fun to play was that of a former mental patient, who is the only person in the production that consistently tells the truth. The 1950's period settings and costumes are extremely well executed, and the pacing of the movie works. It's fun to see an army of men in gray suits and hats make the commute by train into the city, and also to see aspects of office work from that period. Fans of the TV show Mad Men will appreciate the attention to detail required to capture mid-centu... Read more

So the deal is that this is directed by Winslet's husband, Sam Mendes, famous for foisting American Beauty on us, and adapted from a novel set in 1955, but released in 1961, and supposedly so depressing it couldn't be adapted until NOW! So are you ready, party peoples? We open with a short snippet at a NYC party where April, that's Kate, and Frank, that's Leo, meet and chat. Then we cut to April in a local production in which she is apparently awful. Afterward they have a horrible fight on the way home, and we see that when she's upset, April doesn't want to talk, and Frank NEEDS to talk. This is, however, not five minutes into the film. I sort of thought we would see their happy courtship before they moved to the suburbs and began to hate their lives, but no! Which can give you a momentary panic attack thinking "Oh GOD, it's going to be two hours of straight misery, not a slow slide into misery." And it kind of is and isn't. So for the next few minutes we're jumping back and for... Read more

I have yet to see this movie, although I am so excited to see Leo and Kate back together again. I have read the book, and that makes me nervous to see it, because I cannot picture them in scenes where Kate is bitterly telling Leo she does NOT love him. Yates writes with a style not unlike Salinger. Frank Wheeler, the protagonist of sorts, even reminds me of a more mature, if not better behaved Holden Caulfield. They are both young men, who are pretty well in life but spend their time in bitter self assessments and trying to find trouble. Frank struck me as a man who grew up too fast...probably what Holden would have turned into had there been a sequel to Catcher in the Rye. The thing that struck me the most about this novel is that Frank and April HAVE children...but they do not care for them as people. Throughout the novel, April tries to convince Frank to let her abort their new pregnancy...because they never wanted children in the first place. The novel does not discuss the child... Read more