I love Richard Yates. The man had a knack for writing subtext like no other author I've ever read. And his novel, Revolutionary Road, was not only his first, but possibly his best. In my humble and harsh opinion, an film adaptation should find the essence of a book, and construct itself accordingly. It's not important to film every detail of a book. You can't cram every event from a book into the two hour format. So as a writer/director, the adaptation must simply be a representation of the book.
By that standard, Revolutionary Road is a failure.
It's well constructed, sure. It has a great cast, it's true. Is there Oscar buzz? Absolutely. But did this filmic version of Yates' look at post WWII life in the suburbs capture what the book was all about? No.
Revolutionary Road is the story of two newlyweds trying to live up to the status quo. It's all about appearances, and living the life that's expected. It's about fitting into a perfect and unrealistic mold, and holding a strong façade when you fail. It's about lying to yourself and everyone around you. It's about contemporary pain and suffering, imprisonment by expectation, hatred, loathing, denial and betrayal. This is not a uplifting holiday story.
Frank (Leonardo DeCaprio) and April (Kate Winslet) Wheeler have moved from the city to the suburbs of New York to settle down and have a family. "Nothing's permanent." They had dreams of travelling the world and being great people. They just knew deep down that they were special. But in the suburbs, they quickly found out they were not. Everyone was just like them, and everyone would fit into society's mold.
Their small house on Revolutionary Road became a prison after they began to have children. Frank would commute into the city every day, and April would stay home with the kids while maintaining a perfect household. Their marriage became a formality, and their dreams began to seem far-fetched. Frank tried to grasp onto his masculinity by having an affair with a young girl from the typist pool.
But things began to look up when April concocted a plan for the family to move to France. The spark in the marriage returns. Frank ends his affair, and the house is full of life as they prepare to finally life the dreams they'd clung to for all those years, until Frank is offered a promotion, and April gets pregnant again.
She wants an abortion. He wants control. She wants to go to France. He wants to take the promotion and finally feel like a man. The weight of their contempt for each other began to bear down with unbearable pressure. Something's got to give.
I won't spoil the ending as it actually is a good one. But keep in mind, its not a happy story, so any ending won't be a pleasurable one. There's much more to the story, but you'll have to read the book to get it. The film doesn't do it justice.
DeCaprio and Winslet act the script superbly, but the script falls short. The idea of this total sense of loss and unimaginable hopelessness in a "normal" everyday marriage is so profound on the pages of the novel, that it was just too big of a challenge to bring to life on the silver screen. The audience was erupting in laughter during what should have been painfully awkward and disturbing scenes. Lives are being torn apart behind a veil of feigned politeness, and the guy next to me is laughing at what he thinks are "jokes". Its subtext people... Read the book.
My advice is this: See this film, but definitely read the book first. It's one of my all time favorites, so I was very excited when I saw that director Sam Mendes was going to shoot an adaptation. Yet I knew, anyone taking on this feat would have a nearly impossible task before them.
The film is boring, and two dimensional. Its dark, but doesn't come close to the pitch of despair that Yates penned. The subtext and character complexity doesn't exist without the inner monologue and detail expressed in the original manuscript.
It just falls short.
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Josh Gloer, Movie Correspondent
You can find Josh's column One Harsh Critic, published every other Sunday. Tuesday, Friday... Who can tell at this point? at http://oneharshcritic.gather.com.
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Comments: 31
(That's sarcasm.)
I'm a massive fan of Thomas Newman, going back to high school. The man can make music like nobody's business. Plus, when he joins Sam Mendes they always manage to come up with classic, listenable film scores for the ages. In fact, right now I'm jonesing for a listen to one of his pieces. I'll expect to see his name in the Best Score category this upcoming year.
I'm taking your advice and reading the book first, but since I'm #19 on the waiting list at my public library, it's likely that I'll be watching the movie on DVD.
I will probably see this movie, even though it sounds like it does not live up to its potential. I like the work of Sam Mendes a lot.
Josh who critiques the critics? I was wondering about this line And his novel, Revolutionary Road, was not only his first, but possibly his best. Being his first would make it his best, worst, etc. wouldn't it. Just one writer to another here.
Not really sure where you're falling on this one--thumbs up? Down? Sideways?
You say "see the film" but then say its "boring" and "falls short".
It's rare for a movie to be able to evoke the same depth of feeling one can derive from a good novel.
Don't need to see a downer flick right now anyway. The holidays depress me enough as it is.
I'm giving all your ratings 10's. The person who left you a 0 may or may not have done that intentionally. I've actually accidentally clicked to soon before I reached the end of the # scale & so the person posting got whatever # was hit. And there is no way to go back & change, & you can't rate again. I would hope that's what happened. If not, that would be just plain mean.
Thanks again for your reviews. I find them very informative & helpful.
All thoughout is the question of what is sanity and what is anything more or less than sanity. It is also about the power of truth, directness, lies, coverups and indirectness. It is also a honest portrait of marriages and many relationships built on an inevitable foundation of ambivalence, confusion, and eternal doubting.
Life is indeed a struggle and as many have said with respect to institutions like marriage: those on the outside want to be inside, while those on the inside want to be on the outside.
Sooner or later each of us bumps up against an invisible wall of realistic limitations when we are forced - if we dare - to ask and try to answer the very biggest questions about our lives: Who Am I and what do I really want; what am I prepared to do to attain my picure of the good life; how best to cope with inevitable feelings like frustration, anxiety, depression, loss, no knowing, uncertainty and the like.
This is a movie who tells it how it is. Where the so called self appointed lunatic for the most part tells everyone the unvarnished truth. Whereas the father of the lunatic turns his earpiece off so he won't have to listen to the inspid chatter of his manipulative wife.
There is something for everyone in this powerful psychological/ philosophical intensely
emotional and thought provoking film. It amazes me how in good film making so much force and meaning can be shoved into approximately 120 minutes. Hooray for great art.
And Kate W is about the most sexy sophisticated actress (or is it actor these days) I have had the pleasure of viewing in a long long while.
I very rarly find a movie that is as good as the book! If I do it was written with the movie to come in mind