A visually stunning, expertly acted, good-looking and well-made drama

Rating: 9/10 (11 January 2009)

If one thing can be said about Mendes, it's that his career has been very eclectic: although all three of his previous movies have depicted distinctly American themes, each was in an entirely different genre and setting. With Revolutionary Road, Mendes comes full circle with his first film, American Beauty, and explores similar themes but with far more subtlety. It is this subtlety that I felt was eventually the film's biggest flaw, but we'll get to that later. Let's start with what was good, in the film, and that gives us a lot of ground to cover. As with his previous films, the production value is truly second to none. With the costume and set design, Mendes has managed to flawlessly capture Eisenhower-era American suburbia of the 1950's down to every little detail of the period. And second-time-collaborator Roger Deakins provides a startling, subtle-but-beautiful visual look for the film, perfectly capturing both the period and the contrast between its diffused, sunlit posterior to the stormy, tremulous interior of the lives of the protagonists.
The story itself is simple but allows for the profound, in-depth exploration of themes. While Mendes' previous films have appeared broad, well-known ensemble casts, with this film he goes a little subtler, and aside from his two main players the cast are mostly unknowns. That said, he was blessed with his two leads, who are two of the best actors working today and also two of my favourites: Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, who worked together for the first time over 10 years ago on Titanic, have proved that they have grown up significantly since the cruise liner disaster movie. Their performances are simply riveting, and they truly bring the fairly simple story of the film to life. While DiCaprio, an actor who has really been rising recently in terms of the quality of his projects and the range of his acting, delivers a striking, dramatic, visceral performance; and yet, distinction can be made that, in my opinion, Winslet out-acts DiCaprio: I haven't read the original novel but from the movie I got the impression that it was more about her than about him. So with Winslet taking center stage, she really delivers on a tremendous level. She nails everything from body language to subtle character quirks to the large, bombastic, dramatic fight scenes, and delivers a performance so poignant and resonant that one can't help but admire her. The thing with Winslet is that she does this with pretty much every role, which is why she is such a good actress in my opinion.
So what's the movie really about? Well, I saw it as an examination, a breakdown of the American Dream. The classic meaning of that term is divided into three major categories: liberty, prosperity and the pursuit of happiness. The film seems to shoot this very mythological idea of the American Dream down, and depicts a situation in which one category comes in stead of the other: in order to be free, we must release ourselves from the obligations of financial success. In order to be rich and prosperous, we must give up our freedoms and liberties in life. And happiness? I felt that the film dealt most with happiness, as both freedom and prosperity seem to contain a little bit each of that third category, but in both cases true, complete happiness seems to be a compromise in both cases. What is the meaning of happiness? Shouldn't two beautiful children, a large, cozy home and financial security also ensure happiness? Or must me always seek more from life? Both characters in the film are adulterous, but they also both find out that infidelity is not an effective escape from their unhappiness. One gets the impression, that even if the characters would end up moving to Paris, they would be unhappy there as well, and what fuels their temporary happiness seems to be the fantasy of getting away, and not the actual act.
With Revolutionary Road, his fourth film, Sam Mendes has crafted yet another visually stunning, expertly acted, good-looking and well-made drama; the performances by DiCaprio and Winslet are simply phenomenal, and while the plot seems simple, it contains complex characters and explores deep, rich themes. Here within lies Revolutionary Road's biggest flaw: Mendes has explored these themes of the meaning of the American Dream before, in his debut film and the utter masterpiece American Beauty, and I felt that the former film explored these themes and delivered that message far more effectively than this latest one. Where Revolutionary Road was restrained and subtle, American Beauty went all-out and held nothing back. And it is this very repetition that restricted this film to being good but not the masterpiece I was hoping it to be.