This is the part where I act like an authority on entertainment, and criticize the work of professionals who are, without exception, more successful than I in the industry in which we both work. Some people would say this is proof I have "balls", or "chutzpah" in Jewspeak. Others would say it's proof I'm a "douchebag". To catch up on any old reviews, you can find the link on the right hand side of the page, or just click here.
’Revolutionary Road’ is one of those films that is almost too perfect to miss. Emphasis on the “almost”. The film is adapted from an acclaimed and beloved novel by Richard Yates. It is directed by one of the better directors around, in Sam Mendes. And it stars two of the very best actors going -- Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet (Mendes’ real-life wife). But that pedigree only gets you so far -- specifically, in the door to the theater.
Once the lights go out, all we have is what’s on film. And even if it looks beautiful, and is exquisitely acted -- and this film is all that -- you need to care about the characters on-screen and their predicaments. And that’s where this elegant film falls woefully short. No matter how much life DiCaprio and Winslet try to pump into their characters -- Frank and April Wheeler, Connecticut suburbanites in the 1950’s -- I couldn’t bring myself to care. Much of the blame for that must fall on the shoulders of Justin Haythe, a novelist-turned-screenwriter whose only other credit was 2004’s ’The Clearing’.
The major problem with the structure of the story announces itself almost immediately. After a brief opening scene in which Frank and April meet and share small talk at a party, we are suddenly thrust forward, years into their marriage. Because of this, all the themes the film will go on to explore -- the dreams and desires which the Wheelers subverted in favor of marriage, family, and safety -- fall flat. We never see the moments that led to these decisions, these compromises, these transactions. If I had seen the metamorphosis these people made from youthful dreamers to middle-age parents, I might feel more for those lost dreams. Instead, they’re like that couple at the party who can’t stop bickering -- you just wish they’d shut up.
I never read the novel, but my wife (whom I trust implicitly) has, and loved it. She claims the book spent more time on the earlier portions of Frank and April’s relationship. This might’ve given us time to grow to like them before they became so bored and unhappy -- imprisoned by the safeness of their lives. We might’ve better understood their sacrifices, and felt the impending dread of the walls lowly closing around them. Instead, I actually found myself wondering if the Academy Awards screener DVD I was watching had skipped a few scenes accidently.
It’s not like the film is so rigorously paced that they didn’t have room to include those early getting-to-know-you scenes. Much of the second act is spent watching the same fights over the same things over and over -- if anything could’ve been trimmed, it’s this. Showing a banal, suburban life is part of the story, but it also gets a little, well, banal. I’m sure the novel was quite good -- for the same reason the film isn’t -- because so much of what makes the story go takes place between the characters ears. Thoughts, feelings and unconscious are the realm of literature, action is the realm of film.
In that regard, this film is sorely lacking. The characters often talk about their plans, their feelings, their desires, but they rarely act on them. Maybe that’s the point -- save for some sexual dalliances here and there. But unlike the subject of the famous line by Henry David Thoreau, their lives may be desperate, but they’re not at all silent. It’s hard to like people when they’re too busy whining about how unhappy they are.
That’s not to say this film is not filled with both a fascinating portrait of a specific time and place, and also a painfully realistic view of the bittersweet institution of marriage. But one can find a better portrait of 50’s-type culture in AMC’s ’Mad Men’ (I know, technically, it’s the early 60’s). Here, the time period is used more as a curiosity than a meaningful backdrop. And a more realistic portrait of marriage at my house, so why go to the movies? I guess the answer to that would be “To see Leo and Kate, stupid!”
The two stars, reunited for the first time since their smashing, record-setting first go-around in ’Titanic’ in 1997, hold up their end. DiCaprio’s Frank is a frustrated dreamer, too big for his little job, but to addicted to comfort and safety to toss it aside. Winslet’s April, on the other hand, is only too ready to toss all the constraints of suburban life -- nevermind the fact they have two children and another on the way. The story takes us into all the dark corners of the “settled down” life, with its stupid bosses, nosy neighbors, and painted on smiles. It leads us to a conclusion that is once heartbreaking yet predictable, dramatic yet antiseptic.
But sometimes the greatest sign a movie doesn’t work is the jarring aspect of the parts which do. In ’Revolutionary Road’, there’s a small subplot involving the Wheelers’ neighbor and real estate agent, Helen (Kathy Bates), and her family which is more compelling than anything between Leo and Kate. Michael Shannon’s performance as Helen’s troubled son John threatens to steal the film, and a late scene between Helen and her husband is the most telling in the film.
As a study of its subject, ’Revolutionary Road’ is fine -- like a painting of a bowl of fruit that nails all the shades and shapes just right. But as an involving, entertaining story, it’s not much better than that same painting. In this way it’s like ’Doubt’, though that film is better -- it had more vivid characters, better dialogue, and a more relatable, better fleshed-out storyline. This has the same great acting, fantastic set design and costumes, and little else. For some, that may be enough. Others will get about halfway through before feeling much like the Wheelers -- trapped in the middle of something we’re not sure we want to carry through with any longer.
Using the age-old Hollywood scale of judgment -- HIGHLY RECOMMEND/RECOMMEND/CONSIDER/PASS (circle one) -- I rate 'Revolutionary Road':
CONSIDER
