'It takes courage to live the life you want'.

Rating: 9/10 (30 April 2012)

Revolutionary Road is a stunning film based in 1950s America, yet it holds a universal message of love and life.
The plot revolves around the struggling relationship of April (Kate Winslet) and Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio). It's a great reunion of these two, both portraying their characters' clashing emotions fantastically right from the start. I love how the film begins with an argument, foreshadowing the constant issues that the couple have.
The iconic book on which the story is based may explain the 1950s setting yet it almost gives reason for the entrapment that they both feel; today it would be acceptable for the couple to separate, whereas then it may have been frowned upon, forcing them both to stay in this 'endless hopelessness'.
The use of music works for both the ups and the downs of their lives. A creepy, slow paced, soft piano score which seems both happy and sad and, if you've seen the film before, reminds you of the traumatic ending the whole way through, heightening the sense of reality amongst the appearance of their perfect 1950s lives. I feel a connection to Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby with this idea; a lot of things in the 1950s are portrayed as idealised, people living their perfect lives with their perfect wives and children, but the reality is much more negative.
The use of costume gives a sense of uniformity, especially during the train station scene when Frank Wheeler seems lost amongst a sea of grey and tan suits and hats. It symbolises his inability to break free from uniformity, from the expectations that life has, an inability to become that 'something special' that Helen keeps saying they have. Frank seems as alone here as April does in her house on her own day after day. They both feel alone in their relationship and in their lives generally; it's as much a story of love which cannot work as it is a story of the expectations people have of what their lives should be, and the inability to break free from this. It gives the audience a universal message of the struggle for happiness in both love and life and, as quoted from the film itself, the fact that 'it takes courage to live the life you want.'