"Day after day, love turns gray Night after night, we pretend its all right but I have grown older and you have grown colder, and nothing is very much fun, anymore"

Rating: Null/10 (4 February 2009)

Just last year I finally saw for the very first time the debut film of Sam Mendes, American Beauty, and certainly I was expecting a masterpiece but now I can say that American Beauty is a good but overrated debut of Mendes. Basically I wasn't sure if I wanted to check Mendes' fourth film, Revolutionary Road, but now I'm glad I was invited to see it, certainly I had a better second experience with a Sam Mendes film not to mention with a film with both Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet playing the main characters.
Here DiCaprio gives another remarkable performance (not to mention Winslet) as Frank, a young man who meet his wife April (certainly played by Kate) at a party, who fought in the WWII and who works at Knox Business Machines, the same company that has Frank's father for 30 years as an employee. Frank and April, better known as the Wheelers are for all the people a beautifully perfect couple. When we meet April we, and Frank, knew that she was an actress, now she is a housewife, a mother of a girl and a boy, two kids that we barely see. Settle down, unhappy moments for our two main characters. We have in another couple (played by Kathryn Hahn and David Harbour) and in Helen (Kathy Bates) the closest persons to the Wheelers. That couple is the "normal" imperfect one, good persons but apparently not as special as the Wheelers and Helen thinks nothing but the same about the Wheelers, she admires them, she really likes them, she think they are special. Is quite interesting to see the reactions of these people when they know about the plans of our young and perfect couple, plans that give hopes to Frank and April, hopes and happiness. The point of doing those plans to feel again, their plans are to move to Paris, France, she will work, he will stay at home to find himself, to find what he really wants. Then is the same routine, Frank has to take the train to get to the office and stuff but there's something waiting, something planned, they feel special. We have a character that appears only two times, his mother says that he is at a mental institution and that he is an intellectual. Since his mother is Helen he certainly had heard many things about the perfect Wheelers, curious that when he finally meet them is when they announce to Helen (and to her husband  played by Richard Easton) that they are not going to continue living in Revolutionary Road. So John (Michael Shannon), the mentioned intellectual son of Helen, knows what means for his parents that the Wheelers are leaving the country and for both Frank and April he is the only one who understand them, who understand why they want to leave Revolutionary Road. So the first time we see John is basically an uncomfortable moment for his parents but not really for the Wheelers, John ends being the only character in our story that not only says exactly what he thinks but also whose words are true at least for the Wheelers. John meet with the Wheelers a couple of times, in both for the Wheelers he says the truth yet the reaction of Frank after hearing John is not the same at all in both moments. Famous critic Roger Ebert wrote this John Lennon phrase at the beginning of his review for this film: "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans". Here of course things happen to them after April says her idea to Frank and he says "OK", the unplanned stuff certainly comes, Frank wasn't waiting for something but this something came, now for him their Paris can be not in France but there in their country and not exactly because there is a Paris, Texas. We see both Frank and April cheating on the other, only Frank will confess this to April, why? with what purpose? He confessed his affair, an affair that started in the day of his 30th birthday, that day he came home and saw April and his children, they certainly congratulated him, was his day and the day he had sex with a work partner (played by Zoe Kazan), by then the Wheelers were still for the people the perfect young couple.
When I entered yesterday to the movie theater to see this film I had in mind that this was one of the five films nominated for the best picture Oscar, you know the poster of Revolutionary Road is similar to the one of The Reader but anyway I recommend you this new Sam Mendes drama, certainly the performances of those who leaved behind Titanic are enough to say that this is a worth watching film. Now checking I know that Revolutionary Road will be "fighting" for 3 Oscars, I go for the Joker.