Revolutionary Road (Sam Mendes 2008)
Posted on March 03 at 19.00, 2009 by Eric Mahleb
Along with Christopher Nolan, Sam Mendes must be the most talented English director to have emerged on the Hollywood scene in the past 10 years. When he is not directing for the stage, Mendes is busy coming up with thought-provoking and beautiful films such as American Beauty (1999), Road to Perdition (2002), Jarhead (2005) and now Revolutionary Road.
This latest one is perhaps Mendes’s most accomplished film to date, although its intensity and lack of warmer characters may prevent it from ending on many critics’ top ten lists. It has certainly not been that warmly received by the general public, probably due to its disconcerting tension and forcefulness. It is also likely that many people might have found a bit too much of themselves in the Wheelers, this couple that self destructs under the weight of unfulfilled dreams.
If American Beauty may have seemed a bit tame at times in its depiction of a conservative middle class mentality, placing accessibility before depth, Revolutionary Road tries its best to detach itself from any such notion by creating a bleak and uncompromising film that just keeps hitting you in the stomach until it really hurts. DiCaprio and Winslet (Winslet won several awards for this role) are terrific, a younger version of Burton and Taylor in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Although a very different couple from the one played by Burton and Taylor, DiCaprio and Winslet work so well of each other that their passion and agony become ours. The characters they play may not be the most likeable human beings but that certainly did not keep me from understanding them and from identifying with some of their desires and fears. I suspect many people of a certain age will find a little bit of themselves in what the Wheelers go through, and if that is not the case, then these people are either very lucky, uninterested or too afraid to look too deeply into their own life. Clearly, none of these three things is conducive to appreciating this great movie.
Revolutionary Road should have been nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. It is a tragic and depressing film, beautifully told and remarkably well-made. It is not for everyone’s taste but it is powerful cinema.
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