Revolutionary Road: Hollywood’s Definitive Take on Ennui
Revolutionary Road (2008)
Revolutionary Road re-teams Titanic pair (and Hollywood’s golden screen couple) Leonardio Di Caprio and Kate Winslet, but their relationship here is ugly, complicated and shattering; a far cry from Titanic’s winning and romantic duo.
The story, based on a 1961 novel by Richard Yates dwells into the lives of Frank and April Wheeler (Di Caprio and Winslet) an attractive, supposedly happy couple living in the suburbs somewhere near NY. Frank works a regular 10-5 corporate schedule, April has put her ambitions of being an actress on the backburner, after seven years in wedlock and spends her days smoking, sipping martinis and taking care of the kids. Together they live in one of those houses with lush lawns and understanding neighbors that we get to see only in movies.
But there are cracks in the marriage which become evident even in the earliest scenes, when arguments over trivial disappointments take on gargantuan proportions and Frank conducts a clandestine affair with his new secretary, probably to prove to himself he is still the man he was 7 years ago.
Still, the couple are quite an object of envy and admiration among their neighbors and friends. Things move smoothly enough for a while after they shift to a new locality in the oddly named Revolutionary Road, and then April decides to shift to Paris where she can take up a secretarial job and Frank can devote time to studies and “finding himself”!
Childish as it sounds (even their friendly neighbors mock at the idea behind their backs), April’s decision gives a new lease of life to their fading marriage, though it proves to be a short lived one. Frank is promised a promotion and a hefty raise which forces him to reconsider Paris plans and April ends up discovering she is pregnant for the third time. Matters are further complicated by the arrival of a psychiatric patient named John Givings into their lives, who happens to be the son of the Wheelers’ politely overbearing real estate agent (played wonderfully by Kathy Bates).
The mentally unwell John’s biggest malady seems to be a total lack of hypocrisy. He sees the couple for what they really are, drifting, unsure and surrounded by what Frank terms “hollow emptiness”. John appears as the classic wise idiot Dostoevsky wrote about in his great works. He does not mince words and his comments wreck the Wheelers out of their fragile complacency and knocks their whole existence off balance. The scenes are so powerful it is difficult to watch though it is equally impossible to take your eyes off the screen.
The developments affects April even more than Frank as she finally realizes that her dreams of escaping to Paris will never be fulfilled and she is destined to play the dutiful housewife forever. Her anguish metamorphs into a black hatred for her husband and her unborn child finally and ends any hope the duo may have had of leading a “normal” life.
Kate Winslet plays April as a unhinged, complicated radicalist. Her beautiful face never gives away what she is thinking, and even when she prepares scrambled eggs for her husband with a smile we feel deeply uneasy because we know the character better and realize she can never feel happy enough to smile. Her decision at the end is filmed clinically and pitilessly and is likely to stay with the viewer for days.
Watching this movie is not a happy experience as it offers no answers to the essential malady of life. How does one find true happiness? But it is an exhilarating cinematic experience. Every scene rings true in its depiction of angst and subterranean violence. There is not a single inconsistency in how the characters behave and the slice of life though belonging to the 1950s is very much our own. It’s a hell we all recognize, and the sense of being trapped in one’s own existence and being unable to escape from it is truly universal. The film is Hollywood’s definitive version of ennui, something which Antonioni and Bergman, the late European masters of existential angst, would cheerfully applaud. Watch this masterpiece though I can assure you won’t come out smiling.
My Rating: 
Your Rating
(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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A brilliant film Aniruddha! I’m sure it will be remembered as one of the best of the year. Titanic’s dreamlike couple this time show the other side of the dream that has gone terribly wrong. A man, who resembles many of us-the office goers, (he sells office machines, isn’t he one himself!!!), who craves for a fantasy of perfect life. His wife who badly needs success, however, their planned dreamhunting to Paris looks so unreal, so unreasonable that it had to crumble down.
The film flows at its own pace and unravels the story bit by bit, that’s unpredictable and scary in its own way. Simple moments become great ones…like the one you mention.
A memorable film, great review.
A great review Aniruddha !!
Although I have not got an opportunity to catch this film, this supeerb review has raised my curiosity. But the film would definitly portray and reflect upon the middle-class sub-urban dillemma, which resembles most of us.
Makes me really want to see the film…brilliant, brilliant review!
Just saw the film and I felt it was just OK…
Mendes, like American Beauty, uses the John character and verbalizes what he feels should not go over the audience’s head in order to drench them with their own tears. Yes, there is sheer energy in the scene. BUt was it necessary. OK, pardoned.
Also Mendes cuts to the drama. Come on, you are filming urban boredom here. And everything seems to be ‘happening” . There is no “dead time” at all. I mean, he gets snubbed, he sleeps around, change of plans, familial tension… I get the reasons for the conflict. BUt it has to evolve organically. Cassavetes knew that, Antonioni knew that, hell Fellini knew it. Perhaps Mendes wanted to Americanize Antonioni. There is a sort of
narrative urge here more than study of life at its time. That I feel is the biggest problem. Mendes determines the resolution, takes up the important plot points, film it with his theater instincts.
But the film is kind of entertaining on the whole. At least better than many of the over rated films of the year (Milk, The Wrestler etc.)
And did they have men who wore hats and blazers in the computer age? in the US? After Beatles/Floyd/WW2 etc?
Hmmm…what would u call Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage then, which sidestepped every other aspect in favor of the narrative momentum. But it was the fierce talking heads which made that film compelling. Mendes is not as unflinching as there are moments of (comic)? relief in the form of Kathy Bates’ real estate agent or Frank’s naive secretary. I kind of preferred Mendes’ version to even Antonioni’s rambling ennui in La Aventura, though that film set the trend for all others.
As for your hats and blazers comment, frankly I dont know. Didnt they wear hats and blazers in the 50s and early 60s? Thought it was the norm in the pre-comp age..
Well did it? I felt the movie, though long, developed a keen sense of atmosphere unlike what we have here. Events taking forward the narrative is acceptable. But Mendes allows us to only see what he wants. I mean, it looks as if the conflicts and the visits are the only things going on in their life.
Terrific film! I realize that this film has its fair share of detractors who aren’t very fond of Mendes’ “aestehtic” directorial style but I thought it was incredibly well acted and superbly shot.