Family drama, DiCaprio and Winslet are two of our best actors.

Rating: Null/10 (19 June 2009)

I personally found it a bit unfortunate that the movie is titled "Revolutionary Road" because that gave me some unfounded thoughts about its content. In fact it is the name of the street where they buy their first home in Connecticut in the 1950s, as did many New York city office workers who commuted by train.
Leonardo DiCaprio is Frank Wheeler in an office job that clearly doesn't offer him any challenge. He undoubtedly works there because his father before him worked for the company, in sales. But it is a job and it allows him to pay the bills. Probably common among this type of worker.
Kate Winslet is his wife April Wheeler who has aspired to be an actress but instead has settled into being a suburban housewife with a son and a daughter.
But the movie actually starts 7 or 8 years earlier when they catch each other's eye at a social mixer, and each immediately finds the other fascinating. The thrust of the story is built on this, often young people get married for a type of fascination that soon fades away and which must be replaced by a totally different set of circumstances that link them and allow them to remain a happy couple.
The couple, now in their 30s, remain seemingly happy but each has a type of wunderlust that distracts them at times. For Frank it may be the cute young secretaries in the office pool. For April it may be the thought of getting out of Connecticut and into something more appealing.
A change of direction comes when April is looking at old photos of her husband, in Paris during the war, and reminds him that he had said Paris is the place he would really rather be. She has this idea, if they sell their home and use their savings they can move to Paris, she can get a job as a well-paid secretary working for a US Embassy and he can leisurely figure out what he really wants to do with his life. But is she really doing this for her husband, or is it more for herself?
This is a good family drama, set in the 1950s but could have been set in more modern times. Virtually every married couple goes through at least some of these things on the road to a long-term relationship. It was fun seeing Leo and Kate together again, 12 years after "Titanic."
SPOILERS: Even though Frank and April had not been 'close' in some time one evening they have passionate sex in the kitchen, during the time they were planning the sale of their home and their move to Paris. Ten weeks later April tells Frank that she is pregnant, but she thinks she can safely have a self-abortion. Frank is mortified, that she would think of killing their unborn child, and even wonders if she even wanted the two children they already have. Meanwhile on a lark Frank does something flippant at work which turns into a great idea, and is offered a big promotion and raise to join a group in the very new field of computer sales. All this gets them to re-think their plan to move to Paris, plus when Frank confesses he had a brief affair with a secretary April tells him she doesn't care, she doesn't love him anyway. They have a big fight, April seems to get over it the next day, feeds Frank before he goes to work, she performs the self-abortion at 12 weeks with tubes and a suction bulb, she bleeds, and even taken to the hospital she does not survive. Frank is never the same, he resigns to working and taking care of the kids.