Review of Revolutionary Road (2008) by Markb. — 15 Jan 2009

Does this movie sound familiar to you? Directed by Sam Mendes, it deals with the spiritual crisis of its profoundly disenchanted lead, unhappily married and enmeshed in a financially rewarding but tremendously soul-killing suburban lifestyle, and who seeks to make a series of impractical, unrealistic, even desperate changes that irreversibly affect said character's marriage and existence (in both the philosophical and literal senses).

If you guessed American Beauty, give yourself half a point...and essentially Mendes' Revolutionary Road IS American Beauty, less 44 years in time and ALL the humor (except, curiously, in the movie's final image).

Kevin Spacey's iconic Lester Burnham from the 1999 blockbuster undergoes a sex change operation, emerging as April Wheeler (Kate Winslet), who feels that time has totally passed her by, that her potential has been squandered, and that her only choice is to uproot her corporate-drone husband Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio, whose developing facial blockiness really serves him well here) and seldom-seen kids and reinvent herself in Paris, considered the hot spot for bohemian freedom in 1955.

(One essental difference between April and Lester: 1955 middle-class life being what it was, it's comparably far more difficult for April to "rule"!) The two central performances are certainly powerful enough that after the knock-down drag-out that occurs in the first 10 minutes, you'll stop associating the stars with Titanic, and you definitely won't be humming any Celine Dion tunes as you leave the theater.

The supporting work, particularly by Kathy Bates as a chatty Realtor who acts as one of the status quo's many guardians, and Michael Shannon as her institutionalized and lobotomized son who nevertheless sees things far more clearly than the "sane" people (a cliche even when novelist Richard Yates devised him in 1961), is fine, and Mendes' direction, though less flamboyantly "theatrical" than his 3 preceding films (with a couple of notable, carefully-chosen exceptions) makes all the right choices.

But will America embrace this the same way it did American Beauty? Doubt it, and not just because it's a period piece (special note to moviegoers born after 1975: in the 1950s it was considered perfectly acceptable for pregnant women to smoke like chimneys and drink like fishes, and nobody objected, not even doctors) but because Lester and Carolyn Burnham really spoke to a great many viewers in Mena Suvari's age range (and in all fairness, struck many others as superficial and obvious, but those individuals are WRONG!) It's more likely that Revolutionary Road will be admired at arm's length than truly loved; more likely than not, a typical response to April's plight will be, "Screw existential frustration; with the economy the way it is right now, she should be damn thankful her husband has a job.

ANY job!" While American Beauty accurately painted a picture of many young viewers' parents, it's doubtful that Revolutionary Road, as artfully presented and absorbing as it is, will have much to say to under-25s.

..OR their folks.