Revolutionary Road

Pity the poor suburbanite, especially those who aspire to greatness. Trapped in suffocating neighborhoods, commuting to soulless offices to do uninteresting work, or stay home and wile away hours in drudgery, this pitiful class has been examined in countless films, but perhaps none so pointed as Revolutionary Road, directed by Sam Mendes and based on a novel by Richard Yates.

Frank and April Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet) are one such couple. They live in a bedroom community outside New York City, circa 1955. He works for a company like IBM, going to work each day and sitting in a cubicle, surrounded by other men just like him, who would rather read the paper or escape to martini lunches. She appears to be something of an artistic type, who wanted to be an actress, but now spends her days keeping house, bemoaning how she has come to be like everyone else in her neighborhood.

DiCaprio has always talked of how much he loved Paris, how "people are alive there, not like here," so Winslet comes up with the notion that they move there. She would get a secretarial job while DiCaprio finds himself. The neighbors and co-workers find this a fanciful notion, as if they had decided to go to the moon, but the Wheelers are rejuvenated by the plan, until nature interferes.

An admirable work, full of fine acting, I was underwhelmed by Revolutionary Road. Much of it had to do with the pacing and structure. The film begins with a fleeting scene of the two meeting at a party, and we learn that Winslet wants to be an actress. That is the last bit of backstory we are to hear about her. We don't know where she's from, or who her family is. The next thing we know the couple is married and she's in a community play. It doesn't go well, and DiCaprio patronizingly tries to console her. They end up in a screaming match by the side of the highway, and as it unspooled the thought crossed my mind that the projectionist had started with the wrong reel (all of this happens before any credits roll). For a scene this big in emotion, there needed to be more understanding of who these characters were.

I also had some trouble with some of the technical aspects of the film, especially the use of focus. When two characters are in the frame, one in foreground and one in background, there's two ways to handle it--you can switch focus from one to the other, depending on who the director wants the audience watching, or you can use deep focus, which has all characters in the frame in sharp focus. Mendes, in several scenes, uses the former, but often has characters who are speaking in the background out of focus. Now I suppose his intention was that we be registering the faces of those in the foreground who are listening to what his being said, but I think it's a natural inclination to be looking at a character who is speaking, so I ended up watching a character who was fuzzy, which made me question my eyesight.

The piece is well-acted, though. DiCaprio is still doing his damnedest to shake that baby face. He is thirty years old in this film, and that's actually younger than he really is, but he still looks like he's playing dress-up in his fedora and thin tie. He really score points in the emotional scenes, though, particularly a scene where he has to react to Winslet telling him she loathes the sight of him. As for Winslet, she is superb, although I pondered her choice for vocal inflections. Of course she is doing an American accent, but she's done those many times before. For April she's given her character a kind of breathy prep-girl voice, as if she had gone to a fancy women's college, that was effective in making her out of place in the boring suburbs. It would seem Winslet knew more about her character than the director or screenwriter (Justin Haythe).

Perhaps the sharpest performance was by Michael Shannon. He plays the son of Kathy Bates (also very good), who is the Wheeler's neighbor and real estate agent. Shannon's character has been institutionalized and given electric shock treatments. Therefore he has a tendency to speak his mind, and on two memorable visits he sizes up the Wheelers with precision. The first time the Wheelers react with good humor, not so much the second time. Shannon ends up giving the film some electric shock treatment, kickstarting the film into a higher gear.

I've seen almost all the relevant releases from 2008 (I still need to see The Wrestler, which I will do this week), and Revolutionary Road is not one of the top films I've seen. I'm still waiting for a movie to absolutely blow my doors off. So far my favorites have been The Visitor and WALL-E. In a few weeks I'll announce my favorites of the year.