7:20pm Wednesday 4th February 2009
SAM Mendes's beautifully crafted adaptation of the novel by Richard Yates chills to the bone with its unflinching portrait of scenes from a disintegrating marriage.
Set in '50s suburban Connecticut, where white picket fences and impeccably mown lawns project an image of suburban bliss to mask the betrayal and regret, Mendes's film leaves us cold, certainly for the opening hour.
A deceptively cosy prologue, detailing the first encounter between Frank Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio) and aspiring actress April Johnson (Kate Winslet) at a Greenwich Village cocktail party, segues into screaming, shouting, tears and recriminations.
The disastrous first night of April's play culminates in a blazing row.
It's a far cry from when the couple first arrives at the perky little house on Revolutionary Road, full of hopes and dreams.
They raise two children and make ambitious plans to move to Paris, where she can take a well-paid secretarial position at a government agency and he can decide what he wants to do with the rest of his life.
The Wheelers are soon driving each other insane as Frank sleeps with a secretary and an increasingly unhappy April encourages the advances of married neighbour Shep.
Revolutionary Road is technically polished, from Mendes's deliberately slow direction to the flawless production design, Roger Deakin's cinematography and Thomas Newman's moody score with echoes of American Beauty.
Performances are electrifying too, with DiCaprio and Winslet verbally tearing strips off each other, in stark contrast to the last time they shared the screen.
Yet we struggle to emotionally connect to Frank and April, misery tumbling from their mouths and sadness etched in every furrow of their brows.
Only in the sombre closing frames do we find ourselves moved by their anguish.
-Damon Smith
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