Sam Mendes Hates American Suburbs

Rating: 5/10 (28 December 2008)

The New York Times called this "pessimism without redemption" -- that's pretty accurate. Despite strong performances by DiCaprio and Winslet, the film never exceeds a relentless hammering of the banal American suburban existence by Sam Mendes. Within 5 minutes, we see an all-too-real-feeling argument between our lead couple over the realization that Winslet's character is just not a talented actress. From there, we are subjected to a near 2 hours of the worst moments of couples therapy. The problem with Revolutionary Road is shared by both the source material (Richard Yates' novel) as well as the direction. Mendes' earlier treatise on suburban existence - American Beauty - worked because of the self-deprecating humor of Kevin Spacey. Here, there's no humor, just multiple layers of misery. It doesn't help that a little careful scrutiny of that misery uncovers how trivial the couples problems really are (the couple wants to move to Paris because they are in a rut living in the NY metro area. Funny how no one asks, "Why not get another job?"). In the end, R^2 is really a mediocre stage play filled with misplaced angst. Without any real drama (or perhaps too much of it), I really left the theater asking myself "who cares?"