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Movie Description
More than a decade after sharing the screen in the record-breaking TITANIC, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet reunite for this adaptation of Richard Yates's novel. This drama about a married couple in the 1950s is directed by Winslet's husband, Oscar winner Sam Mendes., Those who were waiting for the romantic reunion of TITANIC's Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet may be surprised by what they find in REVOLUTIONARY ROAD. The movie begins with a sweet scene where Frank (DiCaprio) and April (Winslet) meet at a party, but the rest of this drama based on Richard Yates's novel is devoted to watching the destruction of their marriage and their selves in 1950s suburbia. Frank works at a job he hates in New York City, then commutes home to two children and a wife who feels none of them belong in their cookie-cutter town. Their realtor (a fine Kathy Bates) recognizes their specialness and introduces them to her mentally unstable son (BUG's Michael Shannon, in another good, unhinged performance) in an effort to establish some normalcy for the man. However, Frank and April's marriage is not as perfect as it seems to the outside world, and the audience gets to witness their downfall.
With its commentary on conformity and finding identity, REVOLUTIONARY ROAD bears more than a passing resemblance in both theme and tone to the TV series MAD MEN and director Sam Mendes's previous film AMERICAN BEAUTY. The characters here may live in a polite age where men wear ties and hats and women clean the house in skirts and heels, but the dialogue often enters brutal territory. Less capable actors wouldn't have been able to capture the volatile chemistry between Frank and April, but DiCaprio and Winslet are as wonderful at uttering sweet nothings as they are at tearing each other apart with verbal barbs. Mendes, directing his wife, Winslet, for the first time, is a perfect match for the source novel's lack of sentimentality and its wry commentary on life in the 1950s that still resonates half a century later.
Industry Reviews
"[With] Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, in two of the best performances of the year....Sam Mendes reads minds when words aren't enough, and has every detail right."
Chicago Sun-Times - Roger Ebert (12/05/2008)
Ranked #6 in Rolling Stone's 'Movies Of The Year' -- "Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are brilliant..."
Rolling Stone - Peter Travers (01/08/2008)
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "Directed with extraordinary skill by Sam Mendes....DiCaprio is in peak form...And the glorious Winslet defines what makes an actress great, blazing commitment to a character and the range to make every nuance felt."
Rolling Stone - Peter Travers (01/08/2008)
3 stars out of 4 -- "[T]he performances are superb, and the film is beautifully shot. And the dialogue, much of it lifted directly from Yates' books, is contemplative and incisive."
USA Today - Claudia Puig (12/26/2008)
"Only a stone, frankly, would not be captured by the honesty and intensity of Winslet's performance, by the breathtaking way she throws herself into this lacerating emotional maelstrom."
Los Angeles Times - Kenneth Turan (12/26/2008)
"The directing, acting, set design -- it's all top notch; Michael Shannon is especially good..."
Premiere - Jenni Miller (12/24/2008)
4 stars out of 5 -- "[An] intelligent and emotionally dense adaptation....Winslet gives a brilliantly detailed performance of swallowed emotions that will almost certainly result in gold-plated kudos comes awards time."
Box Office - Mark Keizer (11/21/2008)
"Winslet has the tricky job of making us see the glimmer of wisdom in April's cockeyed plan, and she pulls it off....Winslet is so meticulous in her telegraphed despair that she intrigues us..." -- Grade: B+
Entertainment Weekly (01/01/2009)
4 stars out of 5 -- "This fertile soil for choice moments of observation and nuance....The most moving then in the film is the on-top-form DiCaprio's devastating physical reaction at a particular moment."
Empire - Angie Errigo (02/01/2009)
3 stars out of 5 -- "There's plenty to admire here. DiCaprio and Winslet channel much nuance into their home-based hell."
Total Film - Kevin Harley (02/01/2009)
"Sam Mendes's spiritually depleted film exerts an undeniable pull as its beautiful, doomed protagonists navigate the ennui of adult life."
Washington Post (01/02/2009)
"[B]eautifully shot, unimpeachably acted...[the] film spins a slow-motion tragedy out of everyday frustrations..."
A.V. Club - A.V. Club (06/03/2009)
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