A Second Exceptional Family Drama from Mendes

Rating: 9/10 (30 December 2008)

Sam Mendes should be pre-emptively awarded a Best Director nomination in any year he releases a film. Through four movies, he's the only director working today who has yet to make a movie that's less than a minor classic, though his dark sensibility admittedly makes his films difficult to watch repeatedly.
In Revolutionary Road, Di Caprio and Winslet give believable, fully human performances in the challenging roles of Frank and April Wheeler, a young couple struggling with their own lack of belief in the life they've chosen. The film shows beautifully, and often painfully, how every moment in life offers a crucial choice, and how the results of these choices can surprise and even devastate. The most impressive thing about RR is the weight and consequence imbued in the life of an "average, suburban American family" - the same weight each of us feels in our own lives. Di Caprio and Winslet deserve at least as much credit as Mendes for this, and all three are worthy of Oscar nominations.
From an artistic perspective, I would rank this as Mendes' "worst" movie, but the faults in the editing and script are so minor that were this any other director, they might not even be noticeable. All told, Revolutionary Road is a unique addition to the oeuvre of a young and already canonical director.