Less Than Meets The Eye

Rating: 5/10 (2 January 2009)

While the film has all of the trappings of Oscar gold including a large marketing campaign, a top shelf cast and Golden Globe nominations it fails the biggest test: Watchability. After an intriguing first half hour the film seems to slip into a predictable pattern and by the end that pattern has worn out its welcome.
Director Sam Mendes is no stranger to marital drama. He swept the Oscars with "American Beauty" a film that made Kevin Spacey a star and was extremely accurate at mining the contradictions of upper middle class domestic bliss. The wild success of "Desperate Housewives" owes more than a small debt to that film. His follow-up "Road To Perdition" broadened the scope but at its heart was a study of the family. Turning his focus to a popular and critically acclaimed novel I must say that he falls flat this time despite the efforts of DeCaprio and Winslett, the pair that hold the record for the most successful box office champion of all time.
"Road" is set in about the same time period as AMC's critically acclaimed "Mad Men" and is about a couple approaching their 10th anniversary. They live in a nice house and have two darling kids and are friends with other couples. The film suggests that according to the standards of the current zeitgeist they should be happy and content. But the script suggests that the pair once believed that they were "special" above the milieu of everyday life. Unforetunately there seems to be very little that is "special" about them unless you consider the husband's extramarital affairs at work or what would appear to be the increasing erratic behavior of his wife to fall into any ex halted category.
At first the aggressive banter between the pair seems jarring and somewhat unique if not totally captivating. But precious little happens in the story and we are left to chew on basically two performers showing us all of their chops and if we can draw anything from the finished product it may be that either Mendes is not that great of a director or maybe that these movie stars are not great movie artists at least not good enough to carry an entire film without any real support. DeCaprio seemed to blow away his detractors with his stunning work in "The Departed" but in retrospect the kudos may actually belong with Scorsese who helmed that project. I guess that everyone will draw their own conclusion but my guess is that simple deduction would place the blame on the performers.
The glowing reviews, award nominations and the cast will most likely bring the public in to see the film but my guess is that this Road will end up being less traveled than others.