A Grueling Drive Down 'Revolutionary Road'

by Brett Parker

I know a bunch of people in their mid-twenties who are engaged or wish to be engaged before they turn 30. They think marriage, along with a house, car, and kids, is the key to a happy life. I want to show these people Revolutionary Road, a film about two bright-eyed young people who buy into the American dream, and find that it’s an unforgiving nightmare. Not only is their marriage the anti-thesis of true happiness but a devastating display of growing inadequacy, selfish resentments, and the death of all hope. The American dream has painted them into a corner of boredom and unfullfillment, transforming them into raging monsters. Sound like fun?

The film reunites Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet onscreen for the first time since their romantic matching in Titanic eleven years ago. They couldn’t have found themselves in a more different situation. DiCaprio plays Frank, an aimless young man who wants to “feel something” out of life. Winslet plays April, an aspiring actress who studied theatre in college. The two of them meet at a party one night and are instantly attracted to one another. They both yearn for something meaningful in life and have a love for Paris, France. Because they occupy the 1950s they feel the inevitable next step is to get married, buy a house, and have kids, so they follow suit and do just that.

However, the idea of the American marriage doesn’t satisfy their deep hungers in life and they slowly begin to realize that. Their buried resentments cause them to lash out and have toxic arguments with each other. April decides they should do something about this by up and moving to Paris. She feels a dramatic departure from America in an exotic setting they both love would help them find what they’re both looking for. Frank half-heartedly agrees to go through with this. However, their plan becomes torn apart when Frank decides to take a big promotion at an office job he can’t stand and April discovers she is pregnant with a third child. These turn of events cause Frank and April to fall apart at the seams, unleashing buried anger at each other with tragic consequences.

Since the Douglas Sirk melodramas of the 1950s, Suburban America has been the target landscape for observing pessimistic and tragic tales of American lives. Most films look at the American suburbs as a place where people must repress their true feelings and desires while being pressured into conformity. So structured and protected is the American dream that if people acted out how they truly felt, the entire foundation of the lifestyle would collapse. This may have been a stronger ideal in the 1950s, but contemporary films such as American Beauty or Little Children show that repressed desires and anxieties still run deep within the same suburban settings of today. With that in mind, Revolutionary Road doesn’t necessarily bring new ideas to this peculiar genre, but I can’t remember the last time a film on this subject matter was so focused and merciless.

Great credit must be given to Sam Mendes for allowing his actors and cinematographer, the great Roger Deakins, to dig deep and pull the unforgiving sadness of the suburban setting into full vivid view. Mendes displays wonderful visual compositions throughout the film. A shot of a quiet Frank and April walking down a middle-school hallway hints at two adults who may still be trapped in adolescence. A shot of a bloodied character staring out a living room window at a beautiful suburban landscape shows how easily a grotesque and startling tragedy can infiltrate a picturesque American life. It says something that sections of this film, with assistance from Thomas Newman’s haunting score and Deakins’ unnerving visuals, resemble a horror film.

It’s the performances, however, that provide the film’s real showcase of terror. To say that DiCaprio and Winslet are intense is a grand understatement. There are moments where we feel they’re about to spontaneously combust. Most cinematic relationships of today feel tame and sanitized, evasive of revealing truths we deeply relate to. Here, DiCaprio and Winslet unleash the fires of hell and hit at uncomfortable truths that will truly knock most couples watching this film. The duo throws subtlety straight into the fire and tear through their characters’ anger and selfishness with a scary ferociousness. It may be over the top, but it’s truly refreshing to see this angry couple unearth the sad flaws of human relationships. I can imagine most couples watching this film and seriously rethinking their relationship afterwards. In a sick, twisted way, this is probably how Jack and Rose would’ve ended up had the Titanic reached its destination!

As the credits began to roll and the lights went up, I didn’t exactly feel like I had just seen a great film. I felt more like I just had the living hell kicked out of me by a piece of cinema. By film’s end, I felt just as wrung-out as the characters were, which I think is the film’s triumph. Not all relationships are fulfilling and life-affirming, and I greatly admired the film for pointing this out with wise honesty. The film may not be as creative as Mendes’ last suburban outing, American Beauty, but it’s just as penetrating and theatrical. With everything the movies tell us about getting married and moving to the suburbs, bachelorhood doesn’t look so bad, does it?