Revolutionary Road

For a movie that reunites three cast members from Titanic, Revolutionary Road is the exact opposite of a romantic adventure film. About halfway in one character remarks "Plenty of people are onto the emptiness. But it takes real guts to see the hopelessness." Revolutionary Road is the kind of film that celebrates its hopelessness. Under the hand of Sam Mendes and the seamless photography of Roger Deakins this tale of suburban angst set in Connecticut during the 1950s simply shines in every scene.
Frankly this is the kind of film I really sink my teeth into while other erudite writers have little patience for the kind of nihilism on display. Everything about conformity destroys you in Revolutionary Road, and the only really sane person is the one on a weekend pass from the insane asylum (Michael Shannon, playing Kathy Bates' son with a vengeance). Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet headline as the married couple who want to follow their passion and move to Paris. Other supporting actors as well as costumes and production design are superb around every door jam.
Frank and April Wheeler (Winslet, DiCaprio) seem like a progressive couple, the kind of dyad to break free from the rat race. But does the rat race also include bohemia in its pedigree? Frank and April make rational as well as irrational choices and the film puts us front and center in that process.
Occasional shafts of light brighten up the Wheelers existence, but the same illumination as in the case of Shannon's character also has the tendency to burn. "If you want to play house you have to have a job. If you want to play really nice house you have to have a job you hate." It's not surprising that the drama is so precise, in parts theatrically so. That's the way Mendes rolls.
Frank wants to live both dreams: the artists and the realist. It's only a fluke and his good looks that set him up for a promotion at his corporate job in the city, a promotion that would mean more money but the end of his and April's Paris dream. The cynicism meter rages in the red throughout Revolutionary Road, but the reality meter makes it solid whether the emotions are in the 50s or present day.