Revolutionary Road
(2008) – If you want to remember the postwar era fondly, the door to Turner
Classic Movies is that way. Director Sam
Mendes helms this adaptation of the eponymous novel by Richard Yates, and
you’ll find it astounding to believe this is the same director behind both Skyfall and American Beauty. Leonardo
DiCaprio and Kate Winslet play Frank and April Wheeler, a couple for whom the
sheen of marital bliss is quickly cracking; the two deliver reliably solid
work, and the tension between the two is divinely palpable. As unfaltering as these two performances are,
they’re also relentlessly depressing.
They’re fantastic performers, and we enjoy them on-screen for it, but
good Lord – it’s very trying to watch two of your most beloved thespians berate
each other for two hours in a self-destructive, mutually abusive marriage. The goal here is a warts-and-all exposé on
the darker side of the late-40s American optimism, with a heavy dose of Peyton Place thrown in for those who
still held the suburbs as idyllic. On
that count, Revolutionary Road is a
bleak success, but feel good it ain’t.
To lighten the mood, though, Michael Shannon wanders into the frame
every so often, and – as is usually the case with him – it’s as though he’s in
an entirely different movie, one I can’t say I wouldn’t rather have
watched. His supporting role as the son
of the Wheelers’ realtor neighbor (Kathy Bates) comes with equal parts mental
derangement and frightening outburst, a fine and effective complement to the
repressed Frank and April. The real
treat is in watching him act, with an occasional tic or bizarre vocal
inflection making his the only real fun performance to be had in a film that is
creatively successful but otherwise oppressing to watch.That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!
