By Linda Winsh-Bolard
Sometimes even in the opening scene, or the credits, a film has a certain feel. Not quite a promise, more a mysterious, dangling attempt to draw you in, to show you something complete. A few will.
Revolutionary Road is one of them. However uncomfortable, it fulfills its promise of presenting a complete story, a question asked, a doubt rising . One that you might not want to hear, or might dread, or might keep hidden within yourself, or one you want to answer.
This is a study of dreams killed by suburbia.
When hopeless emptiness is the definition of life, and only the crazy dare to define it as such, what do you do?
April Wheeler(Kate Winslet), once a hopeful young actress, wants to leave suburbs for Paris, not to run away, but to run to more vibrant reality, while her husband Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio), first drawn to a dream originally his, is later tempted by the security of better job and daily routine at home. April is trapped in a shallowness of life she doesn’t want; yet this life is generally accepted. April wants to “live as if life matters” for herself and Frank. Premonition of future despair spurs her into action.
Her dream is cut short by unwanted pregnancy. Then April finds out that her husband sees “normal women” as the ones who do not terminate unwanted pregnancies. Can she be forced to carry on against her wishes, again? And be send to see a shrink if she is unhappy in a life that she finds lacking? April finds even herself wanting, ridicules herself for holding onto pretention of being special, hope to be better than her circumstances, for believing a promise never made, a dream of future lived. Marriage, kids and house should be enough, it’s enough for Frank. For almost everyone. April begins to feel she is wrong, not special.
When Wheelers' neighbors, the Campbells, discuss Wheelers' decision, they cannot comprehend why would anybody want to leave their enclave; the idea that lives lived solely to support oneself is essentially empty, is strange to them. Yet, even as she fails to understand the concept of searching, Milly Campbell (Kathryn Hahn) weeps when thinking of the enormity of attempting, while Shep Campbell (David Harbour) stares out longing.
Through small scenes and short pointed dialogs, the Revolutionary Road details the way we give up our lives. Relentless, unoffensive, it probes where it hurts most.
Which backbone one truly needs: the one that makes you shoulder responsibilities created by a chance or social expectations, by staying put where you hate it, or the one that allows you to live your life to its fullest potential possibly outside the accepted? Which is more important? Is either right?
Much is sheltered by “white picketed family life”, and little of it is worth it. Even less is lasting. Revolutionary Road is not about failed marriage, however nasty it is finding incompability, but about fear. If you never try, you never fail. What remains hidden will not threaten. Failure rides its own dark horse. Fear of flying means more than an allegoric title.
Sam Mendes is an excellent director. He works with the nearly forgotten craft of human story translating it through directing actors on the screen, and misses very little, if anything at all. Palpable tension is created through out the film by acting, framing, editing and music. The fear is as real as if the screen was dripping blood. The ordinary becomes as ominous as the unknown killing monster lurking in the dark. The monsters April is facing in the sun dappled suburban woods are largely shapeless and very hard to slain.
Revolutionary Road takes place in time often hailed as the securest in American history-the fifties. Not that anything has changed in the suburbs since the fifties. Yet, the time frame seems to be deliberate choice, an integral part of the examination process that Sam Mendes presents. He rattles the cage of accepted myths. Amazingly, not since Sam Mendes’ American Beauty had anyone ventured into serious screen study of suburban life; and Sam Mendes got better with time. It is more than just substituting male main character by a female; it is deeper, darker and scarier.
Kate Winslet also got better. Her April is played with heartbreaking nuances, passion and depth of understanding surprising in a woman who must have little in common with the character she plays. Even Leonardo DiCaprio, after a slow start, is good as her husband, and her opposite in many things. It’s been over 10 years since they appeared together in Titanic, they have grown, and their characters have grown. But then, as now, Kate Winslet wanted to break the barriers of life and Leonardo DiCaprio wanted to join. A wonderful Kate Bates appears in supporting role of real estate agent Helen Givings.
Roger Deakins was behind the camera and some of his images are quite haunting (commuting men, the white bathroom) The film is based on Richard Yates novel, screenplay was written by Justin Hayte.
