REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD |
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Between fights, April and Frank dream of a bigger life than suburban New Jersey. Escaping to Paris is their plan, but not one easily achieved in a mapped out America of the 1950's. | score 4+ |
moviereview rates films from 1 (unwatchable) to 5 (unmissable) |
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| Cast Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslett, Kathy Bates, Richard Easton, Michael Shannon Director Sam Mendes Screenwriter Justin Haythe Country USA Rating / Running Time M / 119 minutes Australian Release January 2009 Official Site (c) moviereview
2006-2009
ABN 72 775 390 361 |
It
often takes an outsider to recognise the demons within. So it seems to
be with Sam Mendes whose searing portrait of poisoned lives in the
suburbs won the English newcomer an Academy Award for American Beauty.
His fascination with suburban hell jumps back to the 1950’s in
this spellbinding account of lives gone disastrously wrong. Winslett
and DiCaprio reunite for the first time since their ill-fated trip
aboard the Titanic, and it seems life is no kinder. They are a young married couple living the white picket stupor in a New Jersey commuter belt. Convinced they are more deserving, that they are in fact better, gifted people, Frank and April look down upon their 9-5 working class neighbours. Tapping into a universal feeling of class superiority, Mendes forces his audience to face a mirror of ego that is as repugnant as it is compelling. As April laments, “I want to feel something, really feel it.” Everyone deserves better, right? Penned by Justin Haythe from a little known novel by Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road is a tour de force. Desperate to fix their argumentative lives and prove their unique standing, Frank and April decide to move to Paris and take up an artist’s life. Tawdry events pile up in a squelch of jealousy and antagonism that culminates in a head-on crash with reality. “People are on to the emptiness,” says an unwelcome acquaintance whose social filtering has been expunged. “It takes guts to see the hopelessness.” He’s right, but no one wants to hear it. Winslett and DiCaprio have never been better as they beat one another into submission for an ugly grab at a future they’ll never see; each offering a piece of themselves to their devastated characters. Mendes guides events with extraordinary skill while ex-pat Roger Deakins’ sublime cinematography does the rest. Where American Beauty found some humour in its character’s bleak lives, Revolutionary Road is like being smacked across the back of the head with a cricket bat. It hurts, it hurts like hell. But in the best way possible. // COLIN FRASER |