Cult film-director, Sam Mendes’ latest conquest, Revolutionary Road, stars Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio as The Wheelers, a lackluster couple whose marriage is sinking faster than the Titanic.
An adaptation of the 1961 Richard Yates’ novel of the same title, Revolutionary Road is 1950’s domestic life at its worst, it’s what goes on after the neighbors have left, the alcohol is gone, and the kids are tucked in for the night.
The film opens with April (Winslet) and Frank (DiCaprio) mingling at an intimate soiree.
It’s immediately apparent that while the couple is sensitive to the desires of suburban families, they believe themselves to be superior to the average man.
Ultimately, the Wheeler’s end up selling themselves out to the lives they swore they’d never lead, settling down on Revolutionary Road in a suburb of New York.
Each day, Frank commutes to the city and works as a salesman for the same company his father worked for while April stays at home and minds the children and other assorted marital duties, like laundry, and getting drunk off of dirty martini’s at three in
the afternoon.
Yet after two children that feel more like baggage and years of residing in the charming white house with red shudders, April suggests that the family move to Paris in hopes of driving them out of the rut they’d settled into.
The idea seems to revive their marriage, for a while at least, prompting them to brag about the big move to everyone in their surrounding zip codes.
Naturally, something occurs that foils their big plans (I won’t give away the ending) and the couple slumps back into their old ways of jittery pacing and scotch induced arguments.
The film is essentially a glamorization of perfectly manicured lawns, restless chain smoking, and two hopeless martyrs who punish each other for the lack of passion and satisfaction they feel for themselves.
Mendes, whose repertoire includes American Beauty, Road To Perdition, and Jarhead, is known for highlighting the bleak existence behind the mask of happiness that many suburban families have worn for decades.
The quintessential illustration of alluringly subtle scenarios, Mendes films are both visually and intellectually stimulating, placing the audience in a sealed box and then forcing them to crawl out of it.