The Great American Nightmare.

Rating: Null/10 (30 January 2009)

Reminisce with me to a simpler time in cinema, back when such a day out was an entirely different experience; a celluloid landscape sculpted with the most obtuse of films, a large quantity of which belong to the science-fiction genre with all its low- budgetary images of horror and paranoia gorging itself unto viewers of all ages from coast to coast in America's theatres. Much of these outings proved to be good fun for the family and dates, and yet something sinister was always prevalent to them- something a little more subliminal and ominous. It was the middle of the 20th century, around about the same time our story begins here.
Truth be told, science-fiction is a genre that couldn't be any further from the tale that director Sam Mendes presents to us here, but in another sense it couldn't be any closer to the truth. In what is essentially a two hour character and relation study of a 1950's American Dream marriage, Mendes paints an eerily numb existence fortified by loneliness and bewildering emptiness. Indeed, it's the same kind of world that Aliens From Mars! would portray as uncomfortably alien in an effort to contrast how well America supposedly had it in contrast to their eastern, vodka drinking red-shirt counterparts. The irony of course being that such audiences need look no further than their own bedrooms (as opposed to under the bed itself) to find such horrific scenes of conformity, lost dreams and social imprisonment.
Revolutionary Road comes from the director of beloved cult-classic American Beauty, which for all intents and purposes set out to decipher the same ideas of social frustration inherent to modern western philosophical values (or lack thereof) and short-sighted ambition. As a follow up, this outing feels both poignant and relative but not without its inherent drawbacks as a direct result of blooming in the shadow of such a renowned and similar output. Indeed, the most consistent of the film's low points simply come from the fact that Mendes seems to be at times- repeating himself. This isn't all bad of course; American Beauty isn't exactly a poor choice of film to trace ideas from- yet there still remain degrees of déjà-vu and needlessness to Revolutionary Road's model that detracts from the experience.
That being said however, Mendes does well to stay clear of the "hopeless emptiness" that dominates its screenplay's narrative; resisting the trappings of merely cloning an accepted form. Rather, Revolutionary Road is feisty and alive; we sit and watch closely as characters slowly wither away and yet we continue to feel for them in their struggle against a tide overwhelming their own personal desires for freedom. Through this shift to emotive engagement Mendes informs but also avoids overtly preaching to the point where connection to character is lost to cold, paper-based ideas. This attention to the emotive core of the couple's rather tragic deterioration allows the film to branch off into directions hinted at throughout American Beauty but never fully explored. Where Mendes' first output focused primarily on many different characters and how they related to one central persona's midlife crisis, Revolutionary Road instead details one relationship between two people lost in a cage that they accidentally stumbled into. It's a relatively small shift in direction, but the movie is certainly all the better for it.
A good few years down the line from their whimsical change of scenery and it would seem that all hope is lost for the Wheelers. Frank (DiCaprio) and April (Winslet) over the years of settling down to raise children in a comfortable corner of suburbia, initially found themselves content and perhaps even happy in their new home only to realise later on that it was a cage destined to kill the love that brought them there in the first place. The result? Explosive. Through years of building frustration with a directionless existence burdened and yet constructed upon the necessity of a normal, socially viable living, the pent up anger eventually comes loose in a series of startling scenes aptly performed by all involved. Indeed, Mendes' doesn't even elect to make obvious distinctions between the script's jumps in time- we can tell from the characters' attitude to each other as where we are in their story.
During these sequences of particular upset however, we experience fully the emotional baggage that each carries as a result of their embittered lifestyle with DiCaprio with Winslet selling it from beginning to end with utter conviction- there is hardly any doubting either's commitment to their role and partnership; this is top of the line stuff that gives a movie such as this its real value. Granted there are moments when Haythe's script borders on absurdity with dialogue plainly written solely to voice themes, yet even such instances carry their own weight in establishing the feature's ideas and criticisms central to the plot.
Rather than paint a picture filled with black and whites, Revolutionary Road instead brushes the canvas with light, albeit detailed strokes of subtle drama shaded with layers of compelling humanity. For what it's worth, the tale it sets out to tell retains a certain degree of romance inherent to its derailing, but not in the windswept manner to which DiCaprio and Winslet met ten years prior. Instead, Mendes offers a tragedy built upon regret and personal affliction rather than an outside, unshakable force- for the Wheelers, their iceberg it would seem comes in the form of a cosy little house overlooking quiet suburbia in all its apathetic, dreamless wonder- and yet you get the feeling that a shipwreck would somehow be a welcome change of scenery for both. For us onlookers however, Revolutionary Road provides safe, over-the-fence peak at the nightmare through a coherent, wonderfully dark, satirical, grounded and well constructed criticism of the picket-fence fantasy.

A review by Jamie Robert Ward (http://www.invocus.net)