|
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD Send This Review to a Friend
The heavily-hyped film re-teaming Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio since their “Titanic” sinking is very well acted—no surprise there—but turns out to be essentially a maudlin soap opera. This story of a failed marriage and thwarted ambitions, with a screenplay by Justin Haythe based on the novel by Richard Yates, treads familiar territory that has been better served before. I think of the far superior 1999 “American Beauty,” for example, which Sam Mendes, who directed “Revolutionary Road,” also directed.
DiCaprio plays Frank Wheeler, the husband who is involved in work he doesn’t like with a business machine company. He does enjoy the sort of one night stand he has with an employee, Maureen, played with wide-eyed willingness by Zoe Kazan. Winslet as April Wheeler is bored with suburban life and motherhood and dreams of something more exciting. She would love to pick up and go to Paris to live and get a job there. It takes some convincing, but her husband seems game. We know there will be an intrusion.
Their marital relationship, which began with romantic appeal, skids downward and grows ugly. And April gets increasingly depressed, especially after finding she is pregnant again, a situation entirely unwanted. What to do, what to do?
The look of the film is of a high order. The mid-1950s setting seems accurate, with the men commuting to work wearing hats, and the aura of suburban life picked up both thematically and visually. Tune in yourself if you want to see how the soap turns out. A DreamWorks Pictures release.
|