A movie that touches the soul

Rating: 9/10 (6 August 2009)

I recently watched the movie The Revolutionary Road, a drama about an unhappy married couple living in the 50s. Sam Mendes paints a picture of American suburbia, reminiscent of a world well into the industrial revolution when people felt the benefits of a booming economy. Indeed in the 1950s the American economy was the strongest in the world. Keeping up with the Jones' was a part of life, as was hypocrisy, intolerance and the dried-up imagination which often went hand in hand with the consumerist, work-driven lifestyle, where the women were pushed aside to make way for the bread-winning man. The latter theme is excellently portrayed in scenes such as the rush hour at the train station where men bustle through as if taking over the city, and at Frank's office which is completely male dominated apart from a handful of female secretaries. The reaction of their conventional friends when April (Kate Winslet) and her husband Frank (Leonardo Di Caprio) announce that Kate will be supporting the family in Paris speaks volumes of the place of women at the time. The dried-up imagination is lucid when the friend exclaims "what for?" when told they will be emigrating to Paris.
I love a film that does not need only words to convey its message, and this movie is one of them. April's strained body language when her dreams of moving to Paris are shattered, the shots of the lifeless empty rooms with dull furniture and the brown and gray suits of Frank and his wearisome colleagues depict a pervasive "hopeless emptiness". The whole scenario spells insipid, and when Kate and Frank excitedly discuss the possibility of leaving this depressing existence behind for a new and interesting life in exotic Paris, we as viewers are intrigued. We want them to pack up and go and we look down on the conventional couple that will be left behind to rot in their unsavory, bigoted existence. Ironically it is the mentally unstable John Givings who seems to see through everyone's facade, and pushes them all to face their truth. "Hopeless emptiness. Now you've said it. Plenty of people are onto the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness." Despite the dramatic turns in the plot, it is the simple images like this that stick – Frank dressed in his suit standing next to his car and waving to his wife perhaps thinking that if he acts like everything is alright and normal, it will be. There is a clash between the adventurous and bohemian and the practical and rational approach to life, whereby you do as is expected of you, and life is defined by your success and place in society. It is a movie that hits home because of what it encourages us to ask ourselves, a rhetorical and age-old question that influences the course of all our lives and is easily a fodder for debate: what is our meaning in life?
The title is an irony that you may find follows you throughout the film. 'Revolutionary' conjures images of the young and fitful - restless souls that seek to change the world. Yet Kate's dreams are stifled by the 'oh come on, stop it' attitude and her tragic end dashes our own hopes for their new found purpose in life. Most of us will be left disappointed after already having decided that Anne's words and a prevalent message of the movie meshes with our own belief: "It takes backbone to lead the life you want, Frank."