I feel like I have been defending Leo DiCaprio all year. But I also feel like he deserves it. Having finally seen Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road, I feel almost unable to properly criticize it. Adapted from Richard Yates’ timeless, and extremely dense, 1961 novel, this film is fairly faithful to its source, primarily a satirical cautionary tale that ends in tragedy.
And while it is far from flawless, Revolutionary Road is interesting. Now, I know that reads like a dubious compliment, but I mean it, I truly do. This is an extremely thought-provoking piece of art that made me want to run out and find an excuse to stay with my friends so we could talk about it some more. Answers the “what” questions and breach the “why” questions.
And let me not forget that the performances are across-the-board incredible. In his review of the film in The New Yorker, David Denby wrote of DiCaprio’s performance as Frank Wheeler: “Frank is a liar, an adulterer, and a compromiser who betrays himself as much as his wife, but DiCaprio projects a natural heroic sweetness—it’s in his movie-star genes—which, in this case, is at odds with the character he’s playing.”
This is certainly true, but replace the negative critical tone with a positive one. Frank Wheeler, in both the book and the film, is a fickle man, swayed by other men and other men’s dreams, too scared to be confident in his own. In that inability there is an inherent tragic heroic-ness, and DiCaprio embodies it to perfection. However, Kate Winslet steals the show without a doubt. As April Wheeler, the veteran actress breathes an amount of life into her character not present in the book. While DiCaprio had much more material to work with the Frank character, it appears that Winslet decided simply to create her own form of the 50s housewife.
While the cinematography is faultless and the score (by the great Thomas Newman) is simple and effective, the direction can best be summed up in one word: professional. Mendes is something of a “method director.” It appears as though he falls in love with the story he’s telling and then goes out of his way to execute said story to perfection, leaving no room for error and, in turn, no room for spontaneity. And while this may have hurt a film like Jarhead, which examines the psychological breakdown of a soldier during peace in wartime, it helps this film, which is fueled on the absence of spontaneity.
Professionalism and all, this is still somewhat of a ridiculous film, and certainly heavy-handed throughout. Scenes screen as if Leo and Kate are on Broadway, or even back on the Titanic, the performing is so thick. Some members of the audience laugh out loud during scenes of anger and insults, quickly silenced as the fight rages on, sometimes for several minutes. But then, much like the widely-ignored Australia, this is a kind of extroverted acting not popular in today’s media. We tend to want our heroes brooding, tortured, tall, dark, and always handsome. The less they say the better. Too bad for DiCaprio, Frank Wheeler never shuts up. But then, how many people do you know like that?
Whether you appreciated the performance acting or not, this is a harsh look at the American Trap, a.k.a. “settling down.” Mendes (and one wonders if Yates knew when he wrote it) knows this trap is timeless, and knows the prevalence of it today. Sure, this is a suburbs mellodrama, but it is not ABOUT the suburbs. In their 1/13/09 review of the film on the /Filmcast, the guys over at slashfilm.com were quick to point out the far-fetchedness of the story and the resolution, deeming it a suburban worst-case scenario of sorts. And that it is. But is that not part of what a satire’s purpose is? Granted, this is certainly not a traditional satire and, in many ways, not one at all. However, as a whole the film mocks the American Trap and warns against it, much in the same way Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead did, following along the basic rules of satire and adding a poignant dose of reality. It asks the question: What if you abide by all of society’s rules? Even if you know they’re wrong?
Young people should see this film right now. It will haunt you out of your seats and force you consider yourself next to the characters on-screen, and I imagine you’ll find yourself praying that you are most comparable to the only “crazy” character in the whole film, John, played convincingly by the criminally underrated Michael Shannon.
Kate Winslet’s April asks the first question: “Who made these rules?”
Mendes leaves it up to the viewer to ask, and answer, the second: “Why follow them?”