Revolutionary Road - Trapped In Suburbia

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Directed by Sam Menedes (American Beauty), Revolutionary Road is adapted from a novel by Richard Yates. (A “Pop Culture Aside”: Richard Yates was the basis for Elaine Benes’ father Alton Benes on Seinfeld.) While the movie is period piece, the novel was not as it was originally published in 1962. Yates was one of (if not the) first writer to address the underlying demons beneath the conformity of the Eisenhower era; therefore, transplanting the story to the modern day would be an exercise in futility.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet play Frank and April Wheeler in Revolutionary Road. Set in 1955, Frank and April are young married couple doing alright for themselves. They are what we would refer to today as “Yuppies.“ Frank has a non-descript job at a machine manufacturing company. It’s a soulless job, but it affords them their life in suburbia. April is a stay-at-home mom slowly being driven mad by a mundane life of domesticity.

The Wheelers view themselves as above suburbia. They feel, no…they know they must be meant for something larger. April fancies herself an actress whereas Frank has never found his calling due to his assuming the role of breadwinner. When the film opens, April is starring in a woefully misbegotten community theater production. Frank tries to be supportive but they both know it was horrendous. The more he attempts to console her, the more she bristles at his pity. The play quickly becomes a reflection of their own abandoned dreams, leading to a marital implosion that was clearly years in the making.  Both are suddenly faced with a sobering epiphany: perhaps they’re not special.  Perhaps their superiority to the other suburbanites isn’t so deserved after all.  Maybe they’re just smug elitists. 

Upon this realization, April descends into depression. Frank is left to suffer in silence, filling a role he never wanted. They both desperately want out. Then April seizes on a plan: move to Paris. Frank visited there during the war and has always dreamed of returning. At first this plan brings a newfound happiness to the marriage. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Once Frank knows that he’ll be leaving his job, he begins to perform his duties with reckless abandon. Much to his surprise, this is exactly what his job required. He’s quickly offered a promotion and a big raise. Conversely, and much to April’s consternation, suddenly he doesn’t find his job quite so soulless. In the words of Elizabeth Taylor, “Success is the best deodorant.” Frank is confronted with a problem that many people face: what happens when what you’re good at isn’t what you love?  It’s something I like to call “The Johnny Reznick Conundrum.“  The Goo Goo Dolls started life as a metal band.  But over time, band frontman Reznick slowly realized that he was much better at writing love songs than he was at “rocking out.”  So what do you do?  Stick with what you love or cash the royalty checks from “Iris?”  Frank decides to cash the proverbial royalty checks.  And, as he begins to heed suburbia’s siren song, their marriage begins to disintegrate.

For those that watch Mad Men, Revolutionary Road might feel a bit redundant.  It mines much of the same territory in both style and substance.  But it is just as richly layered and well-acted as its televised counterpart.  And that’s not damning with faint praise, as Mad Men is arguably the best show currently on television.  DiCaprio and Winslet give a virtual acting clinic.  In lesser hands, this material could have easily been dismissed as the trivial whinings of the White middle class.  (And, truthfully, some still might dismiss it as such.)  The Wheelers’ existential morass is definitely on the top half of Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs. But, the mere fact that somewhere in the world someone else has worse problems than you won’t make your own problems suddenly disappears.

DiCaprio and Winslet are perfectly matched.  It’s a pairing that could have felt gimmicky given that the last time these two worked together they were in the biggest box-office hit of all time. DiCaprio embodies a generation of men that, to quote Pink Floyd, “traded a walk on part in the war/for a lead role in a cage.”  And Winslet encapsulates a woman beat down by raising children she felt required to have.  Both are overwhelmed by the odd combination of responsibility and ennui that can often accompany parenthood.  Frank is willing to buckle under.  April is not.  And she’s increasingly outraged and disgusted by her husband’s willingness to acquiesce.

While never stated outright, April’s depression and outrage seem to be exacerbated by her undiagnosed (or more accurately for the time, unheard of) bipolar disorder.  She is subject to whiplash inducing mood swings; elevating her husband to an almost godlike stature one minute and recoiling in disgust from his touch the next.  She’s given to fits of debilitating depression followed by a rapid return to a “housewife” status of Stepfordian proportions.

Michael Shannon gives a break-out performance as John Givings, adult son of the Wheelers’ neighbors.  He’s just been released from a local psychiatric hospital where he’s been given 27 sessions of electric shock therapy.  He first meets the Wheelers during the “happy/going to Paris” phase.  Everyone else thinks they’re crazy but he sees the brilliance in their plan.  His “craziness” has provided him with a vision that everyone else seemingly lacks.  His parents are embarrassed by his enthusiastic endorsement of their decision.  And, when he reencounters the Wheelers after they’ve abandoned their Parisian fantasy, he provides a withering, verbal gut punch that brings the film to a dizzying, dystopian climax.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf and 1 being Scenes From A Mall, Revolutionary Road gets a 8.

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