Revolutionary Road (film)

Revolutionary Road is a 2008 British-American romantic tragedy film        directed by Sam Mendes. It was written by Justin Haythe and based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Richard Yates. This is the second on-screen collaboration among Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and Kathy Bates, all of whom previously co-starred in Titanic. The performances of DiCaprio and Winslet earned them a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama nomination and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, respectively, and the film was nominated for a further three Golden Globes, four BAFTAs and three Academy Awards, including a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Michael Shannon.

The film premiered in Los Angeles on 15 December 2008, followed by a limited U.S. release on 26 December 2008 and a wide U.S. release on 23 January 2009. In most other countries, it was released between 15 and 30 January 2009.

Plot
In 1948, Frank Wheeler (DiCaprio) meets April (Winslet) at a party. He is a longshoreman, hoping to be a cashier; she wants to be an actress. Frank later secures a sales position with Knox Machines, for which his father worked for 20 years, and he and April marry. The Wheelers move to 115 Revolutionary Road in suburban Connecticut when April becomes pregnant.

The couple becomes close friends with their realtor Helen Givings (Bates) and her husband Howard Givings (Richard Easton), and neighbor Milly Campbell (Kathryn Hahn) and her husband Shep (David Harbour). To their friends, the Wheelers are the perfect couple, but their relationship is troubled. April fails to make a career out of acting, while Frank hates the tedium of his work. On his 30th birthday, Frank invites a secretary at work to have a drink with him at a bar. She accepts, gets tipsy, and they end up having sex in a hotel. Meanwhile, Helen has asked April if they will meet her son, John (Shannon), who had been in an insane asylum. She thinks the younger couple may be able to help her son with his condition. April accepts.

April wants new scenery and a chance to support the family so Frank can find his passion, so she suggests that they move to Paris to start a new life away from the "hopeless emptiness" of their repetitive lifestyle. Frank balks at the idea at first, but becomes convinced. Over the next several weeks, the Wheelers tell their various friends about their plans to live in Paris, but surprisingly, the only person who seems to comprehend their decision is John.

As the couple prepares to move, they are forced to reconsider. Frank is offered a promotion, and April becomes pregnant again. When Frank discovers she is contemplating having an abortion, he is furious and starts screaming at April, leading to a serious altercation, in which April says that they had their second child only to prove the first child was not a "mistake".

The next day, Frank takes the promotion and tries to accept his uneventful life. At the end of an evening at a jazz bar with the Campbells, Shep and April end up alone together. She confides in him of her depression over the canceled Paris plans and her life in general, and they end up having sex in the car. Shep professes his long-held love for April, but she rejects his interest.

The following day, Frank confesses to having had an affair, hoping to reconcile with April. To his surprise, April responds apathetically and tells him it does not matter, as her love for him has gone, which he does not believe. The Givings come over for dinner, and Frank announces to the guests that their plans have changed because April is pregnant. John harshly lambasts Frank for crushing April's hope, as well as his acceptance of his circumstances. Angered, Frank nearly attacks John, and the Givings hurry out. Afterwards, Frank and April have a severe verbal altercation, after which April flees the house.

Frank spends the night in a drunken stupor. The next morning he is shocked to find April in the kitchen, calmly making breakfast as if nothing had happened. Frank, unsure of how to react, eats with her. Before leaving for work, he asks April if she hates him. She tells him, of course not. April then calmly goes upstairs to the bathroom, where she--offscreen--performs a vacuum aspiration abortion on herself. Afterwards, she discovers herself bleeding downstairs and calls an ambulance. Frank arrives at the hospital, distraught, and is comforted by Shep. April dies in the hospital from blood loss.

Frank, feeling deep guilt and now a hollow shell of his former self, moves to the city and starts selling computers. He spends all of his extra time with his children. A new couple, the Braces, buys the house and Milly tells the story of the Wheelers to them. Shep stands up and walks out of the house, crying. Milly follows Shep and asks him what is wrong. He tells her he never wants to talk about the Wheelers ever again. Milly agrees that they don't have to.

Helen talks to her husband years later about how the Braces seem to be the best-suited couple for the Wheelers' old house. When her husband mentions the Wheelers, Helen starts to talk about why she did not like them. As she continues talking about all of the things that she did not like about them, her husband turns off his hearing aid.

Cast

 * Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank Wheeler
 * Kate Winslet as April Wheeler
 * Michael Shannon as John Givings, Jr.
 * Kathryn Hahn as Milly Campbell
 * David Harbour as Shep Campbell
 * Kathy Bates as Helen Givings
 * Ty Simpkins as Michael Wheeler
 * Richard Easton as Howard Givings
 * Ryan Simpkins as Jennifer Wheeler
 * Dylan Baker as Jack Ordway
 * Zoe Kazan as Maureen Grube
 * Max Casella as Ed Small
 * Jay O. Sanders as Bart Pollock

Development
After Richard Yates' novel was published in 1961, director John Frankenheimer considered filming it, but opted to make The Manchurian Candidate, instead. Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., expressed an interest in making it into a film, but others in his studio convinced him that it lacked commercial prospects. In 1965, producer Albert S. Ruddy bought the rights but did not like the book's ending, and wanted to obscure April's death with "tricky camerawork". He became involved in adapting The Godfather and, five years later, while a writer-in-residence at Wichita State University, Yates offered to adapt his work for the screen. Ruddy had other projects lined up at the time and demurred, eventually selling the rights to actor Patrick O'Neal. The actor loved the book and spent the rest of his life trying to finish a workable screenplay. Yates read O'Neal's treatment of his novel and found it "godawful", but O'Neal refused the writer's repeated offers to buy back the rights. Yates died in 1992, O'Neal two years later.

The project remained in limbo until 2001 when Todd Field expressed interest in adapting it for the screen. However, when told by the O'Neal estate he would be required to shoot O'Neal's script as written, Field stepped away from the material and opted to make Little Children instead. David Thompson eventually purchased the rights for BBC Films. In March 2007, BBC Films established a partnership with DreamWorks, and the rights to the film's worldwide distribution were assigned to Paramount Pictures, owner of DreamWorks. On 14 February 2008, Paramount announced that Paramount Vantage was "taking over distribution duties on Revolutionary Road". The BBC hired Justin Haythe to write the screenplay because, according to the screenwriter, he was "hugely affordable".

Kate Winslet sent producer Scott Rudin the script and he told her that her then husband, director Sam Mendes, would be perfect to direct it. She gave Mendes Yates' novel and told him, "I really want to play this part". He read Haythe's script and then the book in quick succession. Haythe's first draft was very faithful to the novel, using large parts of Yates' own language, but Mendes told him to find ways to externalize what Frank and April do not say to each other.

Once Leonardo DiCaprio agreed to do the film, it went almost immediately into production. DiCaprio said that he saw his character as "unheroic" and "slightly cowardly" and that he was "willing to be just a product of his environment". DiCaprio prepared for the role by watching several documentaries about the 1950s and the origin of suburbs. He said that the film was not meant to be a romance and that he and Winslet intentionally avoided films that show them in romantic roles since Titanic. Both DiCaprio and Winslet were reluctant to make films similar to Titanic because "we just knew it would be a fundamental mistake to try to repeat any of those themes". To prepare for the role, Winslet read The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan.

Mendes had the cast rehearse for three-and-a-half weeks before principal photography and shot everything in sequence and on location. Actor Michael Shannon said that he did not feel that on the set of the film there were any stars, but "a group of people united by a passion for the material and wanting to honor the book". He said that Winslet and DiCaprio could only make such a good performance as a couple because they had developed a friendship since their work on Titanic. For Shannon, it was more important to prepare for the moment when he walked on the set than being concerned about the movie stars he was working with. On the fight scenes between him and Winslet, DiCaprio said, "So much of what happens between Frank and April in this film is what's left unsaid. I actually found it a real joy to do those fight scenes because finally, these people were letting each other have it." The shoot was so emotionally and physically exhausting for DiCaprio that he postponed his next film for two months.

Mendes wanted to create a claustrophobic dynamic and shot all of the Wheeler house interiors in an actual house in Darien, Connecticut. DiCaprio remembers, "It was many months in this house, and there was no escaping the environment. I think it fed into the performances." They could not film in a period accurate house because it would have been too small to shoot inside. Production Designer Kristi Zea is responsible for the "iconic, nostalgic images of quaint Americana", although she says that was "absolutely the antithesis of what we wanted to do". Zea chose for the set of this film furnishings that "middle-class America would be buying at that time".

During the post-production phase, Mendes cut 18 scenes, or 20 minutes to achieve a less literal version that he saw as more in the spirit of Yates' novel.

Release
Revolutionary Road had a limited release in the United States at three theatres on December 26, 2008 and a wide release at 1,058 theatres on January 23, 2009. Revolutionary Road has earned $22.9 million at the domestic box office and $52.3 million internationally for a worldwide total of $75.2 million.

Critical reception
Revolutionary Road received generally positive reviews from critics.

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times said: It takes the skill of stars Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio and director Sam Mendes to get this film to a place where it involves and moves us—which it finally does—but it is a near thing... Justin Haythe's screenplay does many good things, but it can't escape the arch lingo of the time... and that in turn makes the film's concerns initially feel dated and outmoded as well... Encouraged by Mendes' artful direction, his gift for eliciting naturalness, the core of this film finally cries out to us today, makes us see that the notion of characters struggling with life, with the despair of betraying their best selves because of what society will or won't allow, is as gripping and relevant now as it ever was. Or ever will be.

Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News said: [the film] comes close but falls short of capturing Richard Yates' terrific novel... the movie—two-thirds Mad Men, one-third American Beauty, with a John Cheever chaser—works best when focusing on the personal. Thankfully, it's there that Mendes and screenwriter Justin Haythe catch some of Yates' weighty ideas, and where Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet succeed in doing the heavy lifting... DiCaprio, round-shouldered and sleepy-eyed, and Winslet, watchful and alert, raise up each other and everything around them. Never once shadowed by Titanic, they suggest, often wordlessly, the box the Wheelers have found themselves in. Whereas the novel is told mostly from Frank's viewpoint, the movie is just as much April's, and Winslet, whether fighting back or fighting back tears, is sensational.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave Revolutionary Road four stars out of four, commending the acting and screenplay and calling the film "so good it is devastating". He said of Winslet and DiCaprio, "they are so good, they stop being actors and become the people I grew up around."

Todd McCarthy of Variety called the film "faithful, intelligent, admirably acted, superbly shot" and added, "It also offers a near-perfect case study of the ways in which film is incapable of capturing certain crucial literary qualities, in this case the very things that elevate the book from being a merely insightful study of a deteriorating marriage into a remarkable one... Even when the dramatic temperature is cranked up too high, the picture's underpinnings seem only partly present, to the point where one suspects that what it's reaching for dramatically might be all but unattainable—perhaps approachable only by Pinter at his peak." McCarthy later significantly qualified his review, calling Revolutionary Road "problematic" and that it "has some issues that just won't go away". He concludes that Revolutionary Road suffers in comparison to Billy Wilder's The Apartment and Richard Quine's Strangers When We Meet because of its "narrow vision", even arguing that the television series Mad Men handles the issues of conformity, frustration, and hypocrisy "with more panache and precision".

David Ansen of Newsweek said the film "is lushly, impeccably mounted—perhaps too much so. Mendes, a superb stage director, has an innately theatrical style: everything pops off the screen a little bigger and bolder than life, but the effect, rather than intensifying the emotions, calls attention to itself. Instead of losing myself in the story, I often felt on the outside looking in, appreciating the craftsmanship, but one step removed from the agony on display. Revolutionary Road is impressive, but it feels like a classic encased in amber."

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly graded the film B+ and commented: The film is lavishly dark—some might say too dark—yet I'd suggest it has a different limitation: For all its shattering domestic discord, there's something remote and aestheticized about it. April brings a private well of conflict to her middle-class prison, but Winslet is so meticulous in her telegraphed despair that she intrigues us, moves us, yet never quite touches our unguarded nerves.

Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter called the film a "didactic, emotionally overblown critique of the soulless suburbs" and added, "Revolutionary Road is, essentially, a repeat for Mendes of American Beauty... Once more, the suburbs are well-upholstered nightmares and its denizens clueless—other than one estranged male. Clearly, this environment attracts the dramatic sensibilities of this theater-trained director. Everything is boldly indicated to the audience from arch acting styles to the wink-wink, nod-nod of its design. Indeed his actors play the subtext with such fury that the text virtually disappears. Subtlety is not one of Mendes' strong suits."

Rex Reed of The New York Observer called the film "a flawless, moment-to-moment autopsy of a marriage on the rocks and an indictment of the American Dream gone sour" and "a profound, intelligent and deeply heartfelt work that raises the bar of filmmaking to exhilarating."

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called the film "raw and riveting" and commented, "Directed with extraordinary skill by Sam Mendes, who warms the chill in the Yates-faithful script by Justin Haythe, the film is a tough road well worth traveling . . . DiCaprio is in peak form, bringing layers of buried emotion to a defeated man. And the glorious Winslet defines what makes an actress great, blazing commitment to a character and the range to make every nuance felt."

Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle voted the film as his best of 2008. He commented, "Finally, this is a movie that can and should be seen more than once. Watch it one time through her eyes. Watch it again through his eyes. It works both ways. It works in every way. This is a great American film."

It holds a 68% rating from critics on review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 203 reviews, with the consensus being "Brilliantly acted and emotionally powerful, Revolutionary Road is a handsome adaptation of Richard Yates' celebrated novel". Metacritic lists it with a 69 out of 100, which indicates "generally favorable reviews", based on 38 reviews.

Top ten lists
The film appeared on several critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008.
 * 1st – Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
 * 2nd – Rex Reed, New York Observer
 * 6th – Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News
 * 6th – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
 * 7th – Lou Lumenick, New York Post
 * 8th – James Berardinelli, ReelViews
 * 9th – David Denby, The New Yorker
 * Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (Ebert gave an alphabetical top 20 list)

Accolades
According to Academy rules, an actor or actress may receive only one nomination per category, and due to the difference in rules between the Golden Globes and Academy Awards, Kate Winslet's role in The Reader was considered a leading one by the Academy, while the Golden Globe regarded it a supporting role. So, as Winslet's performance in The Reader had been nominated for Best Actress in 2008 by the Academy, her performance in Revolutionary Road couldn't be nominated.