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DVD Review: REVOLUTIONARY ROAD (BLU-RAY)

Studio: Paramount Home Video
Year: 2008
Cast: Leonardo diCaprio, Kate Winslet, Michael Shannon, Kathryn Hahn, David Harbour, Kathy Bates, Dylan Baker, Zoe Kazan
Director: Sam Mendes
Release Date: June 02, 2009
Rating: R for language and some sexual content/nudity
Run Time: 01h:59m:01s
Genre(s): drama

"Maybe we are running—running from the hopeless emptiness of life here." - Frank Wheeler (Leonardo diCaprio)

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Some were surprised when Revolutionary Road was not given a Best Picture nomination by the Academy. But they probably were not as surprised as those who went expecting a romantic extravaganza between Kate and Leo a la Titanic II and were instead treated to a picture full of screaming matches, depicting the utter breakdown of a relationship.

Movie Grade: A-

DVD Grade: A-

The novel Revolutionary Road, by Peter Yates, has been referred to as the grandfather of suburban novels. It certainly provides a powerful platform for this analysis of the pressures of suburbia, the dissolution of love and the realization of broken dreams and utter disappointment, without the participants quite understanding how they got themselves into this situation, and certainly unable to see any way out of it. They're also the uncomfortable focal point for their neighbors, who pin an inordinate amount of their own hopes on them.

Leonardo di Caprio and Kate Winslet star as Frank and April Wheeler, who are briefly introduced to us as hopeful young lovers, determined to live a life of meaning and happiness that is not dictated by the expectations of others. Of course, things don't work out quite as they expect, for the responsibilities of family and the expectations of the world of 1955 suburban Connecticut, not to mention the grey flannel drudgery of Frank's work in New York, are reminiscent of a prison sentence. April's dreams of being an actress are stunted, as she is reduced to performing (badly) in terrible local productions. She decides to sublimate her own dreams through expressing a long-held fantasy of Frank to move to Paris, and she begins engineering that scheme, without really bothering to check if that's something he really wants to do. Frank, wracked by fears, indecision and a sense of his own inadequacies, can't quite bring himself to make the move, especially as he begins an affair with a co-worker and April announces that she is pregnant with their third child.

Winslet is remarkable in her angry antagonism toward Frank, and diCaprio reliably plays well off of her fury. The intensity of their interpersonal feelings are contrasted with Frank's feigned weary irony when among the neighbors, as well as with April's inspired hopefulness when she seizes upon the idea of the move to Paris. Kathy Bates is excellent as busybody real estate broker Helen Givings, inserting herself into the Wheelers' lives, both envying and disdaining them at once. Michael Shannon received a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role as Helen's troubled son, a mathematics PhD. who has been committed and given shock treatment for the crime of saying what he thinks about people rather than politely nodding and making small talk. A close relative of Jack Nicholson's McMurphy, young John is a twitchy mess with no governor on his mouth. It's really a bit over the top, but the role is a key one as he counterpoints all the things that the Wheelers mean to say to each other but are unable to.

While the performances of the leads and the supporting cast are superb, the movie is a bit of a hard go due to the intensity of the emotion and the raw nerves being hit; there's a good deal here that most people will find uncomfortably familiar if not painful. There's a certain level of self-awareness, but it's also entangled in self-deception and shame. There are some oddities; among these are the tendency of the children of the Wheelers to vanish without explanation for long stretches of the story, apparently solely for the sake of convenience. Indeed, it's jarring when they do briefly show up. Some of the deleted scenes help with that issue to an extent, making one wonder whether they might not have better been kept in the movie proper.

The settings and costuming are vividly recreated, with meticulous attention given to nearly every detail. Roger Deakins' cinematography is often gorgeous, with a sense of the claustrophobia of suburban life painted with glowing light and deep shadow. The beauty of life is here as well as the hurt, and there are no easy answers to the predicament of a life that has somehow gotten away.

The transfer is reasonably good, though digital noise reduction results in unnecessarily smeary details through much of the running time. The TrueHD audio provides a very nice soundstage, especially with the ambient sound in numerous scenes, which provides a sense of being in the room with the characters.

A substantial quantity of useful extras are here, starting with a thoughtful commentary by director Sam Mendes and screenwriter Justin Haythe. Fifteen substantial deleted scenes, running nearly half an hour, provide a number of different views of the relationship of the leads, and some of them change the meaning of the film significantly (especially a fuller version of the ending). These deleted scenes can be played with or without commentary from Mendes and Haythe. Lives of Quiet Desperation: The Making of Revolutionary Road (29m:03s) is a very solid documentary that's far beyond the standard EPK material, with a good deal of attention given to the casting, location shooting and the production design. There's precious little duplication with the commentary. Richard Yates: The Wages of Truth (26m:03) is a very solid documentary about the troubled author, with plenty of reminiscenses about him from family and friends. Finally, there's a theatrical trailer. Happily, all of the extras are presented in HD.

Posted by: Mark Zimmer - June 8, 2009, 7:37 pm - DVD Review
Keywords: drama, suburbia, connecticut, 1950s, conformity, abortion