The hopeless emptiness

Rating: 4/10 (4 February 2011)

At one point in this film the key characters, in discussing their own lives, mention the "hopeless emptiness" of it all. And thus in one line of dialogue is the entire movie summed up rather neatly. Empty for sure and bordering on hopeless Revolutionary Road is pretty much an all-around failure. It's a movie about an unhappy 1950s suburban couple who feel trapped in their own little world. They're disappointed in their lives and harbor fanciful notions of somehow getting away from it all. They're suburban nobodies who want to be somebodies. If the audience could say anything to this screen couple it would probably be "get over yourselves".
Revolutionary Road is one of those movies which goes out of its way to thoroughly depress you. That's fine but if it insists on depressing you is it too much to ask that it entertains you somewhere along the way too? No such luck with this movie. Entertainment value is practically nil, nothing interesting ever seems to happen. Frank and April Wheeler are unhappy. They fight, fight some more, make up for a bit, fight some more and bemoan how miserable their lives have turned out to be. This goes on and on for two hours as the audience tries to stifle yawns. Frank and April are terrible bores. Their friends and neighbors are bores. One of their friends has a rather insane son who pops in a couple of times to inject some personality and life into the movie. Michael Shannon plays that part and makes a better impression than any of the big stars do. At least his character does some memorable things. But his scenes are all too fleeting. All too soon we're back to Frank and April throwing fits about the terrible state of their lives. Which rings rather hollow when you consider 99 percent of the world's population would kill to have the "boring", "hopeless", "empty" lives the Wheelers so detest. They have it pretty darned good but they've deluded themselves into thinking they deserve better. They don't. Their lives are just fine. Hopeless? Empty? Really, get over yourselves. Please.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are both fine performers and they make the best they can out of this mess. The performances aren't the problem, the story is. And the characters. Never for a moment do we sympathize with Frank and April and that right there would be enough to doom the movie to failure. Who can identify with these people? Who would want to? DiCaprio and Winslet took on rather thankless roles in portraying this couple. With all the bickering and fighting there is an opportunity for the stars to go somewhat over the top at times and engage in a bit of scenery-chewing. But aside from that you really wouldn't criticize them. The stars don't let down the movie, the movie lets down its stars. There is so little for them to work with. The story is not engaging at all. It's a dull, boring movie in which very little of consequence ever happens. As such maybe it does capture all that emptiness the characters feel in their lives. But it makes for an empty movie.