Revolutionary Road

Review by Anthony Morris

Suburban ennui is old news for director Sam Mendes - he did direct American Beauty after all. 

So why does he get this adaptation of Richard Yates' classic 1961 novel so wrong? 

Sadly (despite interesting and nuanced performances from his leads) even fans of yelling matches, simmering hostility and emotional manipulation will find much of Revolutionary Road about as dull than sitting in a traffic jam behind a bunch of beige cars. 

Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) and April (Kate Winslet) are a young married couple in 1950s suburbia watching their dreams slowly fade. 

April's once promising acting career is dead and buried by the end of the first scene : she is putting all her hopes into making a mark on the world in Frank's basket. 

Frank, on the other hand, talks a mean game but in reality is starting to settle in well to his nondescript office job with its long lunches and office flings. 

April suggest they move to Paris and start again; Frank agrees, and almost immediately starts looking for a way out. 

The trouble is that while the raw mechanics of their fighting is clear, the reasons why we might care are not. 

April is both hard faced and desperately needy, while Frank is weak but self-serving, and while in a better film we would find a reason to care about what happens to them, for all it's surface polish and fine performances this film just can't manage that. 

The TV series Mad Men mines this territory to much better effect, and is a hell of a lot more fun.

3 out of 5

Revolutionary Road
Australian release: 22nd January, 2009
Official Site: Revolutionary Road
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Kathy Bates, Michael Shannon, Ryan Simpkins
Director: Sam Mendes