A difficult film to either like or to easily dismiss

Rating: 7/10 (11 February 2009)

Adapted from the acclaimed literary novel by Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road is very difficult film either to like or to easily dismiss.
Richard Yates, in writing his book wanted to compare the brave revolutionary spirit upon which America had been founded to the spiritless conformism which had taken hold in the 50's as a result of McCarthyism, where people clung to safety and security at any price. The demise of April and Frank Wheeler's relationship and the price paid for the conformism of their contemporaries is meant to symbolise the last flicker of a dying American flame. Sadly the film, despite being truly well done, delivers no such comparison.
Sam Mendes adaptation is certainly stylish, perfectly detailed and brutally honest. Kate and Leo are both excellent, the art design superb and Roger Deakins captures it all with his usual cinematic eloquence. It's all very high calibre stuff but yet I found it really hard to like or find anything new, relevant or meaningful to me in this melodramatic story.
In fact in the 21st century that I inhabit, I'm not sure any of the themes of Revolutionary Road have relevance. Perhaps in another context, perhaps in another film they might, but to spend two hours with April and Frank and their crowd, however beautifully portrayed they are, is to spend two hours with horrible shallow stereotyped people more in love with their ideas about life than anything else including themselves or each other. Who on earth, however brilliantly the film is made, would truly want to spend a couple of hours getting bogged down in that mire when there are other choices.
I wanted to like Revolutionary Road, the filmmakers have tried to give me stuff to like, and I did like most every aspect of how it was made. I just didn't relate to the people or the situation it was about and cared nothing for this story. More than anything I want to watch films that make me feel something. Sadly this revolution was just not up my road.