Revolutionary Road (film)

In 1948, longshoreman Frank Wheeler meets April at a party. He works as a cashier, and she wants to be an actress. Frank soon secures a sales position with Knox Machines, and he and April marry. The Wheelers move to 115 Revolutionary Road in suburban Connecticut when April becomes pregnant. The couple becomes friends with their realtor Helen Givings, her husband Howard, and neighbors Milly Campbell and her husband Shep. To their associates, the Wheelers are the perfect couple, but their relationship is troubled. April is not successful at acting, while Frank hates his tedious job. On his 30th birthday, Frank invites a secretary at work, Maureen Grube, for a drink, after which they have sex. Meanwhile, Helen asks April if she and Frank will meet her son John, who had been in an psychiatric institution, and thinks the younger couple may be able to help her son with his condition. April accepts. Wanting to escape their suburban existence, April suggests relocating to Paris, France, so Frank can find his life's undiscovered passion. Frank initially balks, but becomes convinced. During the next several weeks, the Wheelers tell their acquaintances about their plans, but only John seems to understand their desire to leave the U.S. As the couple prepares to move, Frank is offered a promotion, and April becomes pregnant again. When Frank discovers she is contemplating an abortion, the couple have an argument. April claims they had their second child only to prove the first 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 her depression over the canceled Paris plans and her life in general, and the two have sex in the car. Shep professes his long-held love for April, but she rejects his interest. The following day, Frank confesses his affair to April, hoping to reconcile with her. To his surprise, April apathetically says it does not matter, for she no longer loves him, an assertion he does not believe. When the Givings come for dinner, Frank announces the plans have changed because April is pregnant. John lambasts Frank for crushing April's hope. Angered, Frank nearly attacks John, and the Givings leave. Frank and April have an argument, and April leaves the house to think. 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 how to react, eats with her, then leaves for work. April goes to the bathroom, where she performs a vacuum aspiration abortion on herself. As a result, she begins to bleed and calls an ambulance. Frank arrives at the hospital, distraught, and is comforted by Shep. April dies in the hospital from blood loss. A guilt-ridden Frank moves to the city to sell computers and spend his spare time with his children. A new couple, the Braces, buys the Wheelers' old home. While Milly and Shep have dinner with the Braces, Milly tells them about Frank and April. Shep walks out, crying; he asks Milly to never mention the Wheelers again. Years later, Helen tells her husband the Braces seem to be the best-suited couple for the Wheelers' old house. When Helen starts talking about why she disliked Frank and April, her husband turns off his hearing aid. == Cast ==

Development and casting In 1961, following the publication of Richard Yates's novel, director John Frankenheimer considered making the film, but opted to make The Manchurian Candidate instead. Samuel Goldwyn Jr. expressed an interest in the film adaptation, but others in his studio told him that it lacked commercial prospects. In 1965, producer Albert S. Ruddy bought the rights but disliked the ending to the novel, and wanted to obscure April's death with "tricky camerawork". Producer David Thompson eventually purchased the rights for BBC Film. In March 2007, BBC Film established a partnership with DreamWorks, and the rights to the film's distribution were transferred to DreamWorks's owner Paramount Pictures. On February 14, 2008, Paramount's other division Paramount Vantage announced it was "taking over distribution duties on Revolutionary Road", but the distribution rights reverted to Paramount Pictures when Paramount ended the production and moved the distribution and marketing operations of Paramount Vantage into the main studio. The BBC hired Justin Haythe to write the screenplay because, according to the screenwriter, he was "hugely affordable". Winslet sent the script to producer Scott Rudin, who suggested that her then-husband Sam Mendes would be perfect as director. He read Haythe's script and the book in quick succession. Haythe's first draft was very faithful to the novel, using large parts of Yates's own language, but Mendes told him to find ways to externalize what Frank and April do not say to each other. 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". On April 24, 2007, it was announced Kathy Bates had joined the cast, along with David Harbour, Michael Shannon and Zoe Kazan. Kazan said she fought hard for the role of Maureen Grube, despite objections from casting director Debra Zane, who thought she was too young. To prepare for the role, Winslet read The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. She said, "The hardest thing about playing April, honestly, was making a very specific choice to not have her being as mannered as she is in the book. In the book, she's very, very highly strung and sometimes hysterical. She feels like a string that's literally going to snap at any moment." DiCaprio prepared for the role by watching several documentaries about the 1950s and the origin of suburbs. He and Winslet have been reluctant since Titanic to co-star in projects that show them in a romantic relationship. Filming In mid-2007, the cast rehearsed for three-and-a-half weeks before principal photography. The film was shot mostly in sequence and on location in Darien, Connecticut. Mendes wanted to create a claustrophobic dynamic on set, so he filmed the Wheeler home interiors in a real house. The property, including the neighbor's house, were very small but featured 1950s-style architecture. Approximately 45 tradespeople were involved with the transformation, including carpenters, interior designers and landscapers. was meticulous with the home's interior lighting. Cinematographer Roger Deakins, who previously worked on Mendes's Jarhead, filmed with a combination of jib and handheld camera equipment. Deakins analyzed the use of every light fixture in the house; Schutt recalled, "He's quite specific about what he wants. For instance, for the night scene by the side of the road, he wanted streetlights that would give a rectangular, tapered light, and for an argument in the Wheelers' front room, he wanted a ceiling fixture that would send light down and out in a fan shape with a hard edge." Deakins found it difficult at times working in a small, shaded house with bulky camera equipment. Nevertheless, Winslet was impressed with his ability to "bounce light all over" using Arri Compact HMI lamps. He said Winslet and DiCaprio could make such a good performance as a couple only because of their friendship since Titanic. For Shannon, it was more important to prepare for the moment when he walked on the set than being concerned about the actors he was working with. During post-production, handled by EFILM, Mendes deleted around 20 minutes of footage to keep it in the spirit of Yates's novel. The music was recorded at Newman Scoring Stage in Los Angeles, and the album was released on December 23, 2008. == Release ==

Home media Revolutionary Road was released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 2, 2009. The Blu-ray edition includes an audio commentary by Mendes, 26-minutes of deleted scenes, and two documentaries on the development of the project. == Reception ==

Box office Revolutionary Road premiered in Los Angeles on December 15, 2008, followed by a limited U.S. release on December 26, 2008, and a wider release (1,058 theaters) on January 23, 2009. In most other countries, it was released between January 15–30, 2009. The film earned $22.9 million at the domestic box office and $56.7 million internationally, for a moderate worldwide total of $79.6 million On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 69 out of 100, based on 38 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Rex Reed of The New York Observer gave the film a positive response, calling it 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." Writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle said, "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." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave Revolutionary Road a rating of a maximum four stars, commending the acting and screenplay and calling the film "so good it is devastating". Of DiCaprio and Winslet, he said, "They are so good, they stop being actors and become the people I grew up around". ''Entertainment Weekly's'' Owen Gleiberman 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." Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News said: Some film critics gave a mixed response. David Ansen of Newsweek opined it is "impeccably mounted—perhaps too much so. Mendes [...] has an innately theatrical style: everything pops off the screen a little bigger and bolder than life [...] 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." Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter described the film as a "didactic, emotionally overblown critique of the soulless suburbs", and thought it was a repeat of American Beauty. He wrote, "Once more, the suburbs are well-upholstered nightmares and its denizens clueless—other than one estranged male. 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." Writing for Variety magazine, Todd McCarthy thought the film was "faithful, intelligent, admirably acted, superbly shot". He 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 changed his opinion, 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", arguing that the television series Mad Men handles the issues of conformity, frustration and hypocrisy "with more panache and precision". • 6th – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone • 8th – James Berardinelli, ReelViews • 9th – David Denby, The New Yorker • No order – Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News • No order – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (alphabetical top 20 list) == Awards and nominations ==