Revolutionary Road is a bleak experience, a tale of crushed hope and repressed observation. It re-teams the ‘Titanic’ pairing of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in a story that ends even less happily than before, and features Winslet’s husband Sam Mendes directing her in ‘weird‘ naked romance with her good friend DiCaprio.
The 1950s detail is broad, but effective – the real minutiae is in the characters, in the nuances of how they relate to each other amid the suburban ‘American dream’ that most are embittered about to some degree (even Kathy Bates). The story is punctuated by twin appearances from the brilliant Michael Shannon, playing the role of a twisted maths genius who sees things how they really are. Like the dishwasher scene in Rachel Getting Married (see review), his return can feel unnecessary – too much like a conceit, too much like a concession to audience understanding – the irony of course, is that Winslet and DiCaprio’s ‘rebel couple’ (as the film is called in France, where Rue de la Revolutions are fairly common) think they see it how it really is, too.
Of course they don’t, which is why the movie becomes so desperately bleak, eventually twisting even the 1950s archetypal happy breakfast into a grim, slow-burning nightmare. After a few dark jokes in the early scenes, Shannon is really the only comic relief.
For all this brilliance, the casting is so high profile it brings unnecessary baggage; like Mad Men, you suspect the film would have been more effective with two lesser known actors, plucked from theatreland’s darker fringes – where they agonised, almost unwatched, through many hours of Ibsen. The suburban picture is also a touch two-dimensional, but then we’ve been spoiled by the familiarity of this image in Desperate Housewives, etc – and it doesn’t really matter, as they are only there for the ‘rebel couple’ to push against.
Bleak, bleak, bleak. A mill that you feel you should put yourself through, and one that is just about worth it. But don’t expect to feel happy for at least half a day afterward – and News Hour advises a large glass of wine to cushion you against its harsher edges.
News hour, with Jerry Caesar 