Revolutionary Road (15)

The American Dream meets the (great) American Depression. Strained silence, cruel conversations and crucial consequences sums up the state the Wheelers’ marriage and ultimately their existence.

Wheelers... meet the wheelers; they’re the typical suburban fam-ily! Frank (Di-Caprio) and Alice Wheeler (Kate Winslet) have it all, a nice house with the white picket fence in suburbia, pleasant neighbours and two gorgeous children. However this is not enough for either of them, both want more and both, for separate reasons cannot come to terms with the everyday monotonous mundane misery that has become their lives. Alice believes that a fresh start in Europe, Paris will be just what they need and naively decides that it will solve all of their problems. Frank is not convinced and both of them engage in their own elicit affairs and dalliances.

Lady of the moment, Kate Winslet proves that this really is her year, teary and over the top acceptance speeches aside... she has been Nominated and already gained glory for her somewhat harrowing performance in ‘The Reader’. This time she plays a woman who to an outsider appears to have it all, the complete ‘American Dream’. For director, Sam Mendes it is not the first time he has tackled such subject matter, 1998’s American Beauty follows the lives of people with the same issue(s) and not unlike the past Oscar winner, Revolutionary Road also has an unsavoury ending.

The film itself deals with two issues that are very much frowned upon within America and society in general in the present day, let alone in the 1950’s. Considering that ‘Brokeback Mountain’ also concerned itself with a controversial issue it draws interesting comparisons with regard to the shock factor. Another film with which similarities can be seen is ‘Vera Drake’. The first half of the film has a very slow pace and honestly it is quite boring, it is only later that you come to realise that this is deliberate and is intended to make you feel the way that Alice does; bored, tiresome and awkward.

Do not go and see this film expecting to leave in high spirits, there is some humour although, it is fleeting. It is depressing and dismal.

In two words it is, Eloquently Despondent.

Amy V Gathercole