A film review - Revolutionary Road

Revolutionary Road – Film Review

Directed by: Sam Mendes

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet

I have been a Leonardo DiCaprio ever since I can remember and somehow this film has eluded me until now. They say you must never judge a book by it’s cover – this is so true as I saw this as a desperate attempt for DiCaprio to prove that he is not only a badass and can actually play a sentimental romantic.  My perceptions were completely blown out of the water and this proves that a good solution before doing ANYTHING is to have no expectations.

As the film began I started to feel like I was in some strange reunion between Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet from Titanic. This film is a parody of what many couples feel in a relationship – imprisonment. Frank and April in are crippled by their own acute self-consciousness and their sense that they are superior to the excruciating banality they have fallen into. April is driven by the fantasy that she will somehow make her husbands’ dreams come true when she proposes that they leave their ordinary life in suburban America in search of adventure by moving to Paris. This was prompted by Frank saying that he wasn’t interested in living a life of external achievement but rather he wanted to feel life, to really feel things. He teaches us a lesson in that we should always be careful what we wish for because we just might get it. He forgot to edit out the pain of unfulfilled dreams and the loss of his wife and child simultaneously.

Revolutionary Road is an excellently crafted film: The script is intricate, the performances real and the direction is great. This is the type of film that makes you very conscious that you are watching a film. It was engrossing but I always felt like an observer looking in – sort of like watching two people in a social experiment; but the performances were riveting enough to keep me involved.  

I found DiCaprios’ role extremely courageous due to the fact that his character Frank was riddled with such self doubt and lacked all courage to go after his dreams. It was refreshing to see him move away from his latest trend of being a tough outlaw. His character reflects the truth about so many people who are so content in being discontent that they seem to remain in the adolescent stage of talking a big game without actually getting into the ring.

Being an advertising man, I believe we should watch movies like this every now and then to understand the human condition a little bit more. I also think I will remain unmarried for the rest of my life.