A missed opportunity

Rating: 6/10 (18 January 2009)

In life, we either have the things that we want or the reasons why we do not have them. Based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Richard Yates, Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road tackles the issue of what it would take to go beyond the reasons and create a life of authenticity. The film reunites the popular stars of Titanic, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, as a suburban couple, Frank and April Wheeler, who see themselves as special but whose mediocre lives do not reflect their ideals. Set in suburban Connecticut in the 1950s, the main protagonists mirror the growing intellectual malaise and search for meaning that lay beneath the outward superficiality of the "affluent society", an undercurrent that would give birth to the counterculture and the more open social environment of the 1960s.
As they move into their new house on Revolutionary Road with their two small children, Michael (Ty Simpkins) and Jennifer (Ryan Simpkins), Frank (DiCaprio) and Alice (Winslet) are determined not to be trapped by their surroundings but their self-deception and inertia ensures that they will get what they resist. They devise schemes to escape that seem plausible on the surface, but fail to confront the fact that they are comfortable in being the people that they used to mock. Ultimately, the gap between their aspirations and their ability to achieve them leads to growing frustration and an inevitable breakdown in their relationship that has sad consequences.
The film opens when Frank and Alice spot each other at a party and the closeness of their dancing indicates a strong chemistry between them. Flashing forward seven years, however, the promise of the opening scene has deteriorated to bickering conflict. Alice, who aspires to be an actress, is disappointed with her performance in the local theater and, on the drive home, becomes furious with Frank who berates her acting ability. Frank is now a thirty-year-old salesman for a business machines corporation in Manhattan, the same company his father worked for, and professes to hate his job.
Recognizing their untenable situation, Alice proposes that they sell their house and move to Paris where she can work in the NATO secretarial pool and Frank can "find himself" and begin to live the life he has dreamed of. Initially reluctant, Frank slowly warms to the idea, seeing it as a way to obtain a release from the suburban mentality personified by Frank's co-workers and neighbors Shep (David Harbour) and Milly Campbell (Kathryn Hahn) who view their proposed move as radical and silly. When Frank is praised at a job for a report he has written and offered a promotion and higher salary by Bart Pollack (Jay O. Sanders), however, doubts begin to surface about the Paris decision.
Soon the couple's arguments take on a more vicious tone, their confidence undermined by visits to their home by their realtor Helen Givings (Kathy Bates), her husband Howard (Richard Easton), and their mentally disturbed son John (Michael Shannon). Free from social restraints, John unleashes a searing indictment of Frank and Alice's values and his verbal thrusts are the film's power point. As a final straw, Alice reveals that she is pregnant and ideas about Paris must be re-evaluated. Fine performances by Winslet and DiCaprio support a solid, workmanlike effort by Mendes, but the film lacks the poetry that would raise it to another level and the dialogue is often self-conscious and overly theatrical. What could have been a work of power and beauty becomes instead a missed opportunity and, in Mendes' hand, Revolutionary Road is a dead end street.