Revolutionary Road (Blu-ray) Blu-ray, 2008

In some quarters, the big story around the movie adaptation of Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road is that it features the first pairing of Kate Winslet and Leonardo Dicaprio since they appeared together in Titanic, itself still the biggest film of all time (although The Dark Knight is apparently yapping at its heels quite frantically); in certain other quarters, though, the fact that the film was made at all is the big news. Because Richard Yates was, in many ways, up until fairly recently, yesterday’s forgotten man. He wrote a novel, Revolutionary Road, in the early 60s that did very well – and then he struggled to write books that matched the success of his debut, failing in relationships, failing in work (although he did achieve some success writing speeches for President Kennedy) and, finally, struggling with alcoholism and serious mental health issues that saw him in and out of asylums and, occasionally, jails as he teetered towards death. A steady series of reissues and reappraisals have slowly rescued Yates from obscurity – and now with Sam Mendes’ adaptation, it looks like he’ll finally get the overdue renown he deserves.

As with Mendes’ earlier movie, American Beauty, Revolutionary Road concerns itself largely with a marriage – the marriage of Frank and April Wheeler, played by the aforementioned Leonardo and Kate. Frank is working in sales, April is tending home and looking after two children but each dreams of a better life, somewhere else. An early fight subsequent to a glimpse into April’s disastrous and abortive theatrical endeavour illustrates the tensions seething below the surface. But a suggestion made by April on Frank’s latest, unhappy birthday – that they should up sticks, while they were still young, and move to Paris – somehow offers them the opportunity for redemption. To the chagrin of their neighbours, they start packing and planning for a different life, a life that shows everyone just how special they are. This is, at least, how April views things. The main body of the film arguably unravels as April learns that neither she nor her husband is as special as they think. In some respects, Revolutionary Road is the flipside of American Beauty – or even American Beauty by way of No Country for Old Men – in that Mendes uses the book to paint a dark and vicious picture of marriage as a whole. This is a dark tragedy, and the individual tragedy of the Wheelers is reflected in the marriages of their immediate neighbours and their realtor (the last shot of the film sees an old man wind his hearing aid down so he doesn’t have to listen to his wife prattle on). Kudos have rightly been bestowed upon Michael Shannon’s performance as John Givings, the realtor’s ‘insane’ son (a role that could have been played by Yates himself), but all of the performances are uniformly terrific. All told, the film is a solid and serious drama, a satisfying adaptation of a great novel and ultimately the kind of film that will leave you thanking the lucky stars that you don’t have a marriage like the characters in the film.

Peter Wild on 29th May 2009
View all 99 of Peter Wild's reviews