Powerful - not for the oblivious

Rating: 9/10 (28 December 2008)

Revolutionary Road has been adapted from the same named novel of Richard Yates. The setting is a suburban area on the east coast in the mid-1950s. Surely there have been many changes of values in gender, society, and family over the decades. Yet,Revolutionary Road, whether the film or the novel, has never lost its power of confronting us, people living in the globalized 21st century, with all the existential issues – questions about life. This is the only movie that I have ever seen which can pose philosophical questions directly yet without compromising the engaging power of drama to its audience. It throws at us with questions about the meaning of life, our responsibility to live an authentic life, our freedom to make choices and decisions, our desire to connect with others and maintain independence, the fine line between the sane and the insane, the limitations of life, etc.
Apparently, April and Frank are diametrically opposite. April is revolutionary, striving for making changes and acting out her desires; Frank is reactionary, always playing safe and following paths opened by others. But, this is not true. Frank was ambitious before marriage. He conformed to the norm for a while, but deep down he felt regretful for the lost dream. Without that intrinsic desire, April would not be able to talk him into moving to Paris at all. (Again, Paris is just a symbol). What is less obvious but crucial for the development of the story is April's passiveness to life. All we see is she pushing Frank to live a life he wants. But what about her? What is her passion about life? We just vaguely know that she wants to be special and live an interesting life. But what exactly it is about? Acting, maybe. But she decided to quit after some setback. Instead of dealing with her own disappointment, fear, uncertainty towards her dream, she averts her frustration by imposing her dream on Frank, making him believe it and actualize it. In doing so, she saved herself from failure to achieve her dream. But, she forbore her responsibility to live a life she wants. In short, both April and Frank possess the same two conflicting dynamics in their minds. It is just that the director highlights the contrast between the pair in order to create a tug-of-war situation, which effectively generates a tension throughout the movie. It is very hard to side with either April or Frank because they were in one in the first place. Personally, half of me goes with April and half of me goes with Frank.
Despite the fact that the story is thickly embedded with philosophical propositions, Revolutionary Road is still a very touching love story. From the moment April thrust her dream into Frank's hand, their love was doomed. Being disillusioned and feeling trapped in a life she hates, April became numb to life. There was no more love in her. As what she and Frank had said to their lunatic neighbor, life became empty and hopeless to April. That's how the love's gone. So was the unborn baby. So was April. A funny question arises from Frank's definition of insanity: according to Frank, insanity is the inability to communicate with another human being and inability to love. How many of us are totally sane then?
As always, DiCaprio's acting is wonderful. He is particularly convincing when getting across the vulnerability of Frank. Kate Winslet performs well. However, when I expected some liveliness in April at certain points in the movie, I did not see it. The dialogues and the cinematography are very clever and powerful. We as the audience might have left the theater with a lot of questions that we fear to answer. Just as likely, we might have walked away in reminiscene of our own struggles about living truthfully.
This is a dense movie and worth another viewing at least.