Successful movie reflecting post-war existential crisis

Rating: 7/10 (7 January 2019)

Revolutionary Road is a successful movie in terms of conveying its message with an acceptable level of cinematography and narrative form. The movie, mainly revolves around the post-war people and their existential crisis. However, more specifically, it deals with the woman that is trapped into the domestic space. This crisis is reflected as lacking the ability to realize his dreams for the man (Leonardo di Capri) and lacking the opportunity to realize itself as a free woman and promising actress for the woman character (Kate Winslet). Of course, as the "backbone" of the household economy, the man's inability, in turn, impedes the woman from pursuing her own path. Domestic duties and especially the "child-making" duty of the woman are seen as the main symbols of the woman's trappedness. Having a house, car and a child is seen as the sufficient causes to be happy and satisfied...
On the other hand, the movie also represents the middle-class families' banality as whole. Although they seemingly have all the "conditions" and properties to attain happiness and they are seen as the ideal couple and family by the way, everything eventually becomes meaningless and aimless. At this point, the movie juxtaposes the projected life in Paris and the too ordinary life in the place where they currently live in the US. The name of the road and, thus, the movie attracts attention in this respect: Revolutionary Road. It is very ironical and creates a contrasting effect between the dreams and realities of the family.
The masterful performances of di Caprio and Winslet fit very well to this post-war crisis scene. The plot flows very well and presents these ideas in a tidy form. Most impressively, hints of the suicidal tendencies of the woman (Kate Winslet) from the dance scene on were very well placed into the plot.
As a result, Revolutionary Road, as a typical Hollywood movie, does not contain anything special cinematographically. If so, it could have been a very good and assertive movie both for the popular and intellectual audiences.