The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence

Rating: 8/10 (20 April 2009)

In the cinema certain historical periods seem to become associated with a particular set of ideas. Thus a 1960s setting is often used (as in the recent "Doubt") as shorthand for "clash between traditional conservative values and progressive modern ones". The 1950s, by contrast, are often seen (as in "Far from Heaven") as a period of stifling social conformity when conservative values went unchallenged by progressive ones, particularly in proverbially conformist suburbia.
"Revolutionary Road" set in a Connecticut suburb in 1955, is not a remake with a period setting of "American Beauty", Sam Mendes' earlier film about suburban life. That film is, among other things, a satirical black comedy, combining satire with a character study of the leading characters and a philosophical exploration of the meaning of happiness. It contains surreal or supernatural elements, being, for example, narrated by the ghost of a dead man. "Revolutionary Road", by contrast, is more realistic and tells the story of the tragic disintegration of a failing marriage, treating its characters as rounded individuals rather than simply as objects of satire.
The two films, however, do have something in common. Like Lester Burnham in "American Beauty", Frank Wheeler seems, superficially, to be living the American dream as a fully paid-up member of the middle class. He has a career in marketing, a charming house, an attractive wife and two young children. Beneath this façade, however, Frank and his wife April are deeply unhappy. April is dissatisfied with her life as a housewife, and Frank dislikes his job.
Two things happen on Frank's thirtieth birthday. He begins an affair with a secretary from his office, less through sexual desire (she is less attractive than April) than through boredom. When he arrives home, however, April makes a surprising proposal, namely that they move to Paris, with April working as a secretary to support the family so that Frank can discover what he truly wants to do in life. After initial reluctance, Frank is won round to this idea, but then two further events cause him to have second thoughts. Frank's talents are noticed by a senior executive in his firm, who offers him a promotion to a better-paid position. April becomes pregnant with their third child, and Frank informs her that in the circumstances it will be better of the family remain in America.
Lester is in many ways a flawed individual, but I suspect that most viewers of "American Beauty" will sympathise with him rather than with his cold, snobbish and neurotic wife Carolyn. With "Revolutionary Road" I suspect that their sympathies will be more evenly divided. Mendes avoids the standard clichés of portraying April as a free spirit and her husband as a complacent bourgeois conformist, or of arguing that the only life worth living is the bohemian one. Frank is dissatisfied with life not because the suburbs are intrinsically dull or because he is temperamentally unsuited to life as a businessman but because his talents are not recognised at work. When he receives his sudden promotion, he realises that he is doing a worthwhile job which will enable him not only to support his family but also make a wider contribution to society. His main fault is that he has failed to realise just how unhappy his wife has become.
April is not a bad person, and has genuine causes of unhappiness, rooted in the social codes of the period which frowned upon married women, especially married women with children, from working outside the home. Nevertheless, she is portrayed as having faults of her own, rooted in intellectual snobbery and what might be called the "grass is always greener" mentality. She believes that she and Frank are unique and special, too good for the life of the suburbs. She sees the proposed move to Paris as the solution to all the family's problems without considering whether this is what Frank really wants. After this move falls through she too has an affair, with their neighbour Shep Campbell, even though he is precisely the sort of suburbanite she normally despises; his main attraction for April is that he is not Frank.
The film reunites Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet for the first time since "Titanic". Although I never really liked DiCaprio in his heart-throb phase in the nineties, "Revolutionary Road" confirms the message of "Catch Me if You Can" and "The Aviator", that he has matured into a fine actor. As for Winslet, her husband clearly knows how to get the best out of her; she really deserved the Oscar for this film, not for her technically proficient but soulless performance in the very overrated "The Reader". Frank and April are, despite their faults, both such vibrant, likable people that we find ourselves desperately wishing in our hearts that a happy ending will be possible for them, even though we know in our heads that the differences in their personalities make that unlikely.
The title is deliberately ironic; "Revolutionary Road" is the name of the street where Frank and April live, but there is little revolutionary about their lifestyle or that of their neighbours. Nevertheless, the film is not really a satire on suburban life; Mendes was no doubt aware that when the cinema indulges itself in anti-suburban satire the result can look uncomfortably like snobbish humour at the expense of those little people unfortunate enough not to have the telephone number salaries enjoyed by Hollywood moguls and stars. It should rather be seen as a moving human drama. DiCaprio himself said of it that "There's rarely a movie nowadays about people and their normal struggles to find happiness in their life". He is, of course, right about the rarity of such movies, and good ones on this theme are still rarer, but 2008 produced at least two excellent examples, "Revolutionary Road" and Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino". A pity that Mendes and Eastwood did not receive more recognition from the Academy. 8/10