First Hit: A wonderful film about the roles we play, the dreams we have and our attempts to live them.
Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio play April and Frank a married couple living in the suburbs in the 1950s.
The crux of the film is that they both feel trapped in their current life and they want a change. Because of how they met, there is an initial underlying belief that they both view change and how one lives their life the same way. However, when it really comes down initiating and living the change, their beliefs are very different and when this fact raises its head; their relationship starts to fall apart.
Kate plays April and a strong powerful woman stuck in a time when women weren’t supposed to be strong and powerful. She wants to live life more fully and not the life of a housewife stuck in a jail called their suburban home on Revolutionary Road.
Leonardo plays Frank as a man willing to sacrifice his life to work for a company his father work in. He does this so that he can have this nice suburban home with two kids and an incredible wife. It is a role he feels safe with but unhappy in.
Frank hates his job and it is going nowhere. Scenes in the office with his co-workers and scenes at the train station with hoards of men, all looking the same, walking from the train to work are priceless. April convinces Frank they can live their dream if he willing to leave the country. Frank is up for the idea until he gets offered a promotion with more money. April sees her life and dream slipping further away which is complicated by a pregnancy.
This is film about being trapped and what do people do about it.
Sam Mendes directed this wonderful, direct, beautiful, poignant look at a 1950s couple riding on the razors edge of living their truth or a role. Just as he did in American Beauty, another one of my favorite films, Mendes gets powerful and startling performances out of his actors. And the visualizations are mostly spot on. The only hit on that is that the fluorescent light fixtures in one of the hallway scenes were fixtures from the 1990s. I loved the “four-holer” Buick Frank drove because it was just like the one we had growing up. Winslet in just two short months has appeared in films where she has given two incredible performances. Although this film is about both of them and their relationship, it is Kate that carries the power in this film. She is amazing in how she changes her character through this film. DiCaprio is very good in this film. To me this is his best ever acting performance. He uses his natural youthfulness and glibness to full advantage here. Another great performance in this film is by Michael Shannon the son of the real estate agent who sold them the home on Revolutionary Road. He visits them from a mental hospital. The great thing about his scenes is that he takes them over and delivers ringing truths about April and Frank’s predicament.
Overall: An outstanding and beautifully executed film about life, despair, and change.