Film Review--Revolutionary Road

Revolutionary Road
directed by Sam Mendes
written by Justin Haythe
based on the novel by Richard Yates
starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Michael Shannon, Kathy Bates, Richard Easton, David Harbour, Kathryn Hahn, Zoe Kazan, Dylan Baker, Jay O. Sanders

The human face is a mightily accurate barometer of emotion and intent. In this film director Sam Mendes focuses a considerable amount of attention on the visages of his lead actors leading to a succinct understanding of the characters’s various torments and disappointments. It maps out territory that is at times convoluted and exceedingly strange. Kate Winslet’s face tells many stories throughout this film. Her rage, frustration, fear, and even the occasional fit of what may pass for happiness are clearly written for everyone to see. Winslet is masterful here at conveying a considerable amount of information with a simple look. She does it unflinchingly as her character remains unaware of just how much she is revealing through her facial expressions.

Kate Winslet is April who is dissatisfied with the way things have developed in her life despite having done everything that society promotes as necessary to a vital, contributing life. When we first meet her she is an aspiring actress whose most recent play is universally loathed. She meets Frank Wheeler (DiCaprio) at a party and the pair are married. Frank convinces April that she’s just not that good at acting and she settles down to be a happy little housewife with her perfect kids, lovely and inviting home, and the latest in appliances. None of this helps her solve her quintessential dilemma which is to live a life that is freer, to see a future with more possibilities and less strain. It’s a breathtaking performance that comes together mostly through April’s reactions to events around her. The look of frustration plays like a permanent scowl that she cannot disavow by pretending to be what she is supposed to be.

April and Frank seem to have an ideal life. They’ve moved into a desirable and enviable home, they’ve gained prestige in the community by pushing out a couple of kids, and Frank is a respected employee for a business machine company. However, he’s routinely disappointed and professes on several occasions that he hates his job. April has an epiphany and decides that the family should move to Paris. It’s a wild idea that clearly is not going anywhere but for a brief period the couple seem to have found a bliss that heretofore has eluded them. Their faces no longer bear the strain of a torment; instead they seem to float by without a care in the world. Circumstances intervene though which trip up the dream leaving it gasping for air in the dirt at their feet.

This story plays out in real life all the time all over the world. There is a nagging feeling that things could be so much better if only this or that aspect of the life were altered dramatically. If only we could move into a better house. If only I could get more money or a better job entirely. If only the wife could get pregnant and bring into the world someone to distract us from the tyranny of our lives. This film suggests that none of these options do much to solve the essential dilemma. Acute unhappiness bordering on despair cannot in and of themselves bring about the desired change. They are often a good starting place but an entirely different world view is necessary if they are going to take root. New objects, new directions can bring about a transformation if the individual has prepared the way for a bright, new future that beckons with a tenacity that cannot be ignored. April and Frank have not prepared themselves for this new future. Their past is still sullied with shattered hopes and dismal personal disasters that are entirely internal in their actualization. Actual events, objects, are not oppressive. It’s the point of view that sees them this way and therefore the world is viewed as hopeless and empty.

Michael Shannon plays John, a former mathematician who has found himself incapable of handling the day to day existence taken for granted by most of the population. His scientific knowledge has been eradicated by electric shock therapy and he resides in a mental institution. He is the son of a realtor named Helen Givings (Bates) and her husband Howard (Easton). Helen asks the Wheelers if she can bring John over during one if his furloughs. They agree and John is paraded out and immediately demonstrates his lack of social awareness. Still, he says things that cause Frank to remark that John is the only person who clearly understands them.

Shannon gives one of those rare performances that is always close to being ripped apart by some spastic fit. He plays it with a fragility that is nevertheless controlled. It’s heartbreaking as one is instantly made sympathetic to a man whose livelihood has been cruelly taken away from him by circumstances beyond his control. John says “A lot of people are on to the emptiness but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness”. There is a real sense that despite his social gracelessness that John has acquired devastating insights into all matters of both the heart and the head. He’s like a savant of emotional truths and he manages to get quite a rise out of Frank who explodes in one of his frequent displays of acute frustration and demonstrable anger.

The marriage of April and Frank is as difficult to manage as a marriage can be. Both of them feel unmoored, merely flakes of dust floating in the wind. When Frank gets a job offer that promises him considerably more money, priorities shift as Frank sees an opportunity for a future that is actually desirable. He recognizes that working in computers could very well be something worth investing his time in. It’s the very thing that he requires to ensure that his work life manages to provide the stimulation and excitement that he’s been craving all along. Sure, it’s a desk job putting in even more hours but there’s a promise at the end of it which Frank clearly believes will offer him many more options. April doesn’t at first see it this way and remains disappointed that she can’t live out her dream as she’s determined it to be. Fights continue as their bond loosens and threatens to snap altogether. Still, there is a very real sense that nothing can fully destroy the love these people have for one another. It’s one of those thick and thin scenarios that plays against the backdrop of domestic euphoria.

Within the tidy framework the seeds of dissent are quietly sewn. Frank has an affair with one of his secretaries named Maureen Grube (Kazan). It doesn’t mean anything whatsoever so naturally he goes back for more. Maureen seems to be aware that she is being used but like all women in her position she chooses to ignore it. In one scene after a tryst she is sitting on the end of the bed smoking. There is a look of quiet resignation on her face as she contemplates what the experience means. Perhaps she’s thinking of the emptiness of the act, devoid as it is of any emotional involvement on his part. Perhaps she’s imagining a scenario where he leaves his wife and takes her in his arms back to his retreat for a repeat performance. Regardless, at the core of the experience is indeed her own emotional involvement in the act. Frank is callous and seems unable to face what he has done so he leaves. Later that night he goes home and is surprised by April and the kids as it is his birthday. The look of his face is one of both acute pain and fear. He knows he has done something untoward but he’s forced to remain as if nothing has happened. It’s a trick that he masters quite effectively. It isn’t until later he confesses to April who simply says, “Why did you tell me? Are you trying to make me jealous?”

In a sense this film can be seen as a guide to surviving the myriad ups and downs that afflict every marriage. It demonstrates both extremes and forces the two central characters to handle each of them while maintaining their dignity and sense of autonomy. In one scene Frank runs after April who has darted into the woods. When he reaches her she is incensed because she needs time to think, time to be alone with herself after a particularly cruel fight. The music as she enters the woods is the perfect mixture of evocative and downright creepy.

The performances in this film are all quite brilliant. Michael Shannon as mentioned clearly demonstrates why he is nominated for an Academy Award. There is an intensity here that comes through from the moment Shannon steps into the frame. His character’s maneuvering through strange territories and Shannon is able to convey John’s acute discomfort through body language and gestures. This is a character who is strained by social interaction and one truly feels this via the way Shannon chooses to sit down or walk about the room. It’s extraordinary to see an actor who is able to show such vulnerability just by moving his hands in a certain way. Kate Winslet gives another Oscar worthy performance as a woman who has reached the end of her tether. April wants so much to be truly happy but finds herself grounded as if her feet were nailed to the floor. There’s a sense that she hasn’t always welcomed the additions of the children but certainly seven years on after the first one she no longer feels apprehensive about them. Still, she does sometimes seem to wish she hadn’t burdened herself with them but these moments are fleeting and do not effect her overall state of being. Winslet as mentioned can destroy with a simple glance and the way her eyes work in this film is devastating.

Leonardo DiCaprio gives a powerhouse performance as a man whose filled with considerable rage about his job, his marriage, and his prospects of doing anything great with his life. He turns thirty and he feels as if he has turned into his father which he vowed he’d never do. Frank is a hard worker who legitimately believes that a man must be out there doing something vital in order to support his family. There’s an integrity to Frank that is only slightly damaged by his penchant for sleeping with the secretary. His longings are typical and subsequently torture him when they are not actualized. Kathryn Hahn plays a solid woman who represents one who has eased into the transition of the happy family life. She is someone who recognizes the difficulties but is more apt than April at facing them with a clear mind and an able heart. Hahn captures her character’s strength and ability to see through the storms without getting unduly accosted by their influence.

Overall, this film is an immaculately acted tone poem on the myriad confusions that afflict even the best intended when they are faced with what they perceive to be limited horizons and the often crushing brutality of the daily grind. The Wheelers have made what is considered by many to be an ideal life for themselves. They have a solid income, two gloriously content children, and a place for themselves in a community that takes in those who have accepted their lot in life without posing any uncomfortable queries that tend to disrupt the calm. Yet, as the film so elegantly demonstrates, this particular reality can be uniformly stifling to ambitions that ascend beyond its codified walls. The perfectly determined life, remaining on the surface something of an achievement, is no respite for those who cannot by into the delusion that such lives necessarily entail. The Wheelers find themselves at odds with the illusion because they still have ambitions for something much more vital. Their suffering emerges when they see before them nothing but slight variations on the same tired theme. At the end of the day, the limits of the proscribed life grinds on those who cannot maintain the charade of acceptance.