Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 6:24 pm · November 15th, 2008
I’m not allowed to get into my thoughts on “Revolutionary Road” in any real detail yet, but we’ve got a real Best Picture contender on our hands, one driven to that status by a dynamic blend of powerhouse performances that won’t likely be forgotten any time soon.
Leonardo DiCaprio, joined on stage right now with director Sam Mendes and the cast for a post-screening Q&A (in front of a massive SAG audience that appears to have enjoyed the film), just described his response to the material as like being “a fly on the wall…I felt embarrassed.” I think that comment sums up both the power of Richard Yates’s incredibly truthful novel and the apparent success with which it has (finally) been brought to the screen.
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2009 Oscars FYC:
Lead Actor - Richard Jenkins, The Visitor Lead Actress - Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road Supporting Actor - Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder Supporting Actress - Rosemarie DeWitt, Rachel Getting Married Original Screenplay - Thomas McCarthy, The Visitor
Posts: 2857 | Location: Why Do You Want To Know? | Registered: November 21, 2006
On his first try nine years ago, Sam Mendes won a best-director Oscar for "American Beauty," which also was awarded best picture. He recalls thinking, "I have got that over with. Now I can go on and make movies. That is a huge gift."
Mendes, a 43-year-old Brit, had a flourishing directing career on the British stage in the 1990s. He's made interesting, if not altogether successful, choices since "American Beauty," directing the moody gangster saga "Road to Perdition," based on a graphic novel, and the psychological war drama "Jarhead."
Now he's back with "Revolutionary Road," reuniting his wife, Kate Winslet, with her "Titanic" co-star, Leonardo DiCaprio. They play a suburban couple in the 1950s whose lives are not turning out at all the way they had hoped. It's based on a novel by Richard Yates, an all-but-forgotten writer whose career has gotten a boost 15 years after his death. In Frank and April Wheeler, he created two desperately unhappy people who are swept up in the conformity of the times.
From his home in New York, Mendes talked about what drew him to the book, all the while keeping an eye on his 3-year-old son, Joe.
Q: What attracted you to this project?
A: It was very simple, the two of them: Frank and April. I read the screenplay first and I didn't love it. But when I read the book I had some kind of access into the characters' inner world. Frank is so weak and gutless and guilt-ridden and deceiving and yet completely sympathetic at the same time, and April is so mysterious and so unreachable and complex.
Q: Did you always have your wife in mind for April?
A: Actually, Kate read it before me and wanted to do it. So when I read it, I never imagined anyone else as April. It didn't take a genius to think of Leonardo for Frank. He is so vulnerable and boyish, and yet you get the feeling that he has become a man in the last couple of years. I was just amazed, when I sent (the book) to him, at his willingness to play a weak man. You get an impression he only wants to play heroic the whole time, but he was amazingly brave playing someone so flawed.
Q: Your wife has been quoted saying she couldn't wait to get the kids to bed so she could pick your brains about her role. Did it ever get too intense around the Mendes household?
A: I am somebody who, when I work, I like to come home and switch off. I realized that was not going to be possible on this film. It was 24 hours a day. Kate is very focused and detail oriented. She didn't wake me up to ask questions. But she was waiting for me to wake up so she could.
Q: Have you come close to directing her before?
A: Strangely enough, we never got past the starting gate on anything. We were both very cautious about waiting for the right movie.
Q: Did the two of you ever fight over how to do a scene?
A: No, but that would never happen with anyone. I am naturally the friend type of director. I always adjust to whomever I am working with. I am not the type of director who shouts and screams and makes rows.
Q: The author Richard Yates once said that he meant "Revolutionary Road" as an indictment of the conformity in 1950s America. Is that how you saw it?
A: I didn't take it that way. I think he wrote a novel as a portrait of an era, a community and a marriage and, for me, the marriage is what stood out. We don't fetishize the '50s. You learn about them almost by accident. It is not about the suburbs. It is about a couple. I always felt it was a universal love story, and where they are is tangential to the story of their marriage. At the end of the day, it is sister to films like "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," "Scenes From a Marriage" and "Carnal Knowledge" rather than to "Little Children," "American Beauty" and "Ordinary People." If I felt it was a movie about the suburbs, I'm not sure I would have done it.
Q: Frank Wheeler has a corporate job in Manhattan not unlike that of Don Draper in "Mad Men," and the suburban life depicted in "Revolutionary Road" is also similar, although your film is set five years earlier. Did you see similarities?
A: I am a big fan of "Mad Men." Matthew Weiner (the series' creator) has said that "Revolutionary Road" was a big influence. Stylistically, on a surface level, there are a lot of parallels with our film. The look is quite similar, but the reality is that this couple (the Wheelers) could exist now. There is nothing about them that is particular to the '50s or '60s.
Q: The book is set in suburban Connecticut. Is that where you shot?
A: Yes. We did a huge amount of scouting before we found the Wheelers' house. It is amazing when you are looking for a movie location how you just get shown inside people's houses. It's like they are auditioning.
Q: Was Yates a discovery for you?
A: Yes because there is a kind of ache and a longing that he writes about - a sense of reaching for something that is always out of reach. All his characters have that in the book. As you watch Yates' career go on, his characters become very hardened. This was his first novel and most romantic.
Q: I talked to Ellen Barkin years ago and she had the rights to another Yates' novel, "The Easter Parade." Any news on that being made into a movie?
A: She still has the rights, and she is hoping "Revolutionary Road" does well so she will be able to make it.
Revolutionary Road (R) opens Dec. 26 at Bay Area theaters.
This article appeared on page N - 19 of the San Francisco Chronicle.
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2009 Oscars FYC:
Lead Actor - Richard Jenkins, The Visitor Lead Actress - Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road Supporting Actor - Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder Supporting Actress - Rosemarie DeWitt, Rachel Getting Married Original Screenplay - Thomas McCarthy, The Visitor
Posts: 2857 | Location: Why Do You Want To Know? | Registered: November 21, 2006
And Sasha Stone from Awards Daily loves Revolutionary Road too.
Revolutionary Road Screening
Author: Sasha Stone Nov 16
I wasn’t going to say anything about this because of the Tuesday embargo, but since someone else already did, I suppose I can say a bit about the screening itself, though nothing of the film. They invited the press and a lot of SAG members. There were free martinis on the way in and on the way out. There was a Q&A afterwards with some of the key cast members. There was a party with the cast afterwards that I didn’t attend. I also didn’t drink a martini because I knew I would need to be frosty watching this, one of the season’s hopefuls. Ms. Winslet and Mr. DiCaprio were charming, of course, but I dare say Michael Shannon stole the show in the Q&A. They talked about the film and took a few questions from the audience.
She then went on and wrote a few responses in the "comment section" of the post:
-I can’t really give my thoughts except to say that take a look at the contender tracker…. But Paul has a point - there were SO many actors there that word is bound to seep out. A deal’s a deal and there are so many hissy fitters out there who would complain, believe me, you don’t even want to go there. What I will say is that in any given year in the ten years I’ve been doing this there are a few movies I can write about with depth and clarity, films that illuminate the human condition and those films are inspirational to cover. I feel like Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham choosing her ball player for the season but it isn’t even that direct - it was King Kong one year and that wasn’t even in the race. This year there have been a handful so far - I suspect that when I finally see Milk it will be one of those. Probably Slumdog too. Dark Knight is one. I can say without reservation that no matter if the critics trash it or not, if it goes the distance or not, if it’s an “Oscar movie” or not, RR is, for me, one of those I could write reams and reams on. See, I conveyed it without using a single descriptive adjective.
-I walked out thinking Leo is about to win his first Oscar. He is so good, crazy good, scary good. Oh f*ck, I’m supposed to shut up. Ahhhh, this is so hard.
Lead Actor - Richard Jenkins, The Visitor Lead Actress - Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road Supporting Actor - Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder Supporting Actress - Rosemarie DeWitt, Rachel Getting Married Original Screenplay - Thomas McCarthy, The Visitor
Posts: 2857 | Location: Why Do You Want To Know? | Registered: November 21, 2006
This is not exactly a rave from The Hollywood Reporter."Revolutionary Road"
Opens: Dec. 26 (New York, Los Angeles) (Paramount Vantage)
"Titanic's" Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet reunite in "Revolutionary Road," only instead of their characters finding themselves on a sinking ship in 1912, they run aground in a disastrous mid-1950s marriage.
In the bad-marriage movie sweepstakes, "Revolutionary Road" is no "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" But when sheer nastiness seizes its characters, the vindictiveness and emotional damage are breathtaking. Here's the real difference: In "Virginia Woolf," George and Martha are locked into a symbiotic, disturbingly needy relationship that absolutely feed off their acidic battles. But for "Revolutionary Road's" Frank and April Wheeler, you wonder: Why don't they just get a divorce?
The initial audience for this pungent critique of the soul-damaging, ball-busting desolation of the American suburbs of the postwar era might be large. Younger audiences will be curious about the DiCaprio/Winslet reteaming, while older viewers might gravitate toward an old-fashioned domestic drama, the kind that more or less disappeared from cinemas once sci-fi, fantasy and horror took over. Yet the fragile foundation for all the marital histrionics in "Revolutionary Road" might lead to tepid word-of-mouth.
Justin Haythe's script and Sam Mendes' direction hew closely to Richard Yates' 1961 novel. Which means it fails to escape the novelist's misogyny and contempt for anything suburban. The phrase seized upon in both works is "hopeless emptiness." It's apt.
Frank (DiCaprio) and April (Winslet) are individuals born with an innate sense of superiority but absolutely no ambition. So finding themselves married with two young children and living in Connecticut, they are frustrated and bored. Her solution: Sell everything and move to Paris where they will get in touch with their inner bohemian.
He likes the idea for a while. Then, when a promotion at his Manhattan firm from a soulless job into a much better paying soulless job emerges, he sours on the idea. Her pregnancy because of bad family planning seems to settle the issue. But Frank hasn't calculated on a stubbornness and selfishness in April worse even than his own.
The Great Paris Getaway scheme is strewn with adulteries on both sides -- his with an office bimbo (Zoe Kazan) and hers with the boorish next-door neighbor (David Harbour) -- intrusions by busybodies like their happily chirping Realtor (fellow "Titanic" alum Kathy Bates) and the story's own Greek chorus. The latter is the Realtor's institutionalized son (Michael Shannon).
The moment he walks into the Wheeler household, he cuts through all the b.s. as he immediately discerns the couple's tenuous relationship. He asks all the right, damaging questions and makes all the right, devastatingly accurate observations. So in this tale of suburbia the only fellow who understands anything is the one on a four-hour pass from the funny farm.
"Revolutionary Road" is, essentially, a repeat for Mendes of "American Beauty," right down to the formal camera compositions, repetitive musical chords and shocking death at the end. 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.
The movie mostly finds its dramatic rhythms in the, yes, titanic quarrels between its married couple. These lack for true wit or appreciation of rhetoric. Yet they are as toxic, hateful and desperate as any ever committed to the screen between a husband and wife.
The Envelope's Foremost Blatant Liar & Fabricator
Posts: 880 | Location: Around the Corner From You | Registered: December 12, 2007
I dont care for this review. It's vaguely insulting, for me as a potential viewer. And, comparisons to American Beauty, is hardly a negative, in MY opinion.
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Posts: 8225 | Location: canada | Registered: December 22, 2005
A positive review from Todd McCarthy in VARIETY...
"Revolutionary Road" is a very good bigscreen adaptation of an outstanding American novel -- faithful, intelligent, admirably acted, superbly shot. 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. Sam Mendes' fourth feature reps what many people look for in the realm of serious, grown-up, thoughtful film fare and, led by the powerful performances of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, teaming for the first time since "Titanic," Paramount Vantage should be able to push this sad tale to a potent commercial career among discriminating audiences.
In addition to being compared with Richard Yates' 1961 novel, which thwarted previous aspiring adapters and has enjoyed a persistent following over the years, the film will conjure up two other comparisons -- to the TV series "Mad Men," which is set in the same general period and shares a focus on hard-smoking, hard-drinking New York commuters and their women, and Mendes' own "American Beauty," a similarly critical but far more theatrical look at the underside of the suburban American dream.
Screenplay by Justin Haythe ("The Clearing") scrupulously adheres to the structure, personalities, perspectives and much of the dialogue of the novel as it examines the heartbreaking schism in the relationship between Frank and April Wheeler (DiCaprio and Winslet), a strikingly handsome couple who buy into the postwar convention of abandoning the city and raising two kids in a picture-perfect Connecticut suburb while Frank commutes to his unchallenging job at a large business-machines corporation in Manhattan.
Stuck at home, and with the far more acute set of emotional antennae, April is the first to identify the "trap" of their lives, and soon proposes they chuck it all and move to Paris, where she proposes to support the family while Frank endeavors to find himself. "This is our one chance," April stresses, and it doesn't take long for Frank, who would seem to have a latent bohemian in him, to agree. Questioned as to why they'd want to make such a drastic move, Frank replies, with a glancing hint of ironic humor, "We're running from the hopeless emptiness of the life here."
Literature, movies and social commentary have all been down this road many times before, stressing the conformism of '50s upper-middle-class life, the emotional sterility of the suburbs, the hypocrisy of attitudes, the sexism, et al. What keeps all these too routinely accepted views safely in the background here is the stinging emotional truth that courses through the novel and, to a significant extent, the film, thanks especially to the electric, fully invested performances by the two leads. Frank and April are like a 20-years-younger George and Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" who have yet to achieve an unstated equilibrium in their epic tug of war.
One youthful advantage they still enjoy is a simmering amorous relationship. Sad to say, this doesn't prevent Frank from having an office fling with a very available secretary, Maureen (Zoe Kazan), as a 30th birthday present to himself. Incidental as the interlude is, the brief affair serves as a cogent illustration of how the film conveys only a fraction of the nuances and layers of the book.
In the film, it appears Frank makes his move on an almost arbitrary impulse, and he's made to look bad in the typically chauvinistic way he uses his superior position to seduce a powerless young woman. On the page, the two already have a history marked by a long mutual flirtation, and Maureen is described as sexier and less frumpy than the woman who turns up onscreen. Frank may be a cad either way, but in the novel, his cheating involves an array of ambiguous feelings on both sides -- anticipation, hesitation, delight, remorse, Frank's subsequent temptation to confess -- while in the film it registers only one meaning: naughty boy.
With one notable exception toward the end, Haythe and Mendes capture the primal emotional and thematic points of the book as they try to find a cinematic way to express the subtext of Yates' prose, which most distinguishes itself through the precise expressions of minute changes in emotion, attitude and thought -- what might he say, what should she say, what does he feel, what's she really thinking, how did he and she react at the same moment? Even when the dramatic temperature is cranked up to 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.
That said, "Revolutionary Road" is constantly engrossing, as it successfully engages the Wheelers' yearning to rescue themselves from their decorous, socially acceptable oblivion, just as it clearly defines how the "trap" is stronger than they are. The rows, tender moments and downtime in between are fully inhabited and powerfully charged by DiCaprio and Winslet. For his part, DiCaprio often achieves the kind of double register the film as a whole less consistently captures, as he indicates Frank's thought process in the split second before he decides what to say. At certain moments, the conjoined cerebral and emotional aspects of his characterization summon the spirit of Jack Nicholson's breakthrough performances around the time of "Five Easy Pieces."
Winslet's perf is less surprising, perhaps, if only because she has shown tremendous range throughout her career. April is a difficult role in that her mood changes sometimes seem inexplicable, but the thesp makes them all seem genuine, which resonates with Frank's occasional hints that she's possibly in need of psychiatric help. Winslet's starkly etched April is steely, strong and brittle, capable of great highs and lows as well as massive uncertainty.
Pic's startling supporting turn comes from Michael Shannon, who's mesmerizing as the clinically insane son of local realtor and busybody Helen Givings (Kathy Bates). He's a loony who is able to tell the truth about the Wheelers that everyone else so politely avoids; when Shannon is onscreen, it's impossible to watch anyone else. The limited roster of supporting players has been expertly cast, and the thesps deliver accordingly, notably Bates, Richard Easton as her conveniently hard-of-hearing husband and David Harbour and Kathryn Hahn as the Wheeler's small-horizons neighbors.
Kristi Zea's production design meshes with location work in Connecticut and Gotham to produce a vivid but unstressed sense of 1955. As ever, cinematographer Roger Deakins makes everyone -- the designers, actors, director, gardener, manicurist, you name it -- look even better than they do on their own. Thomas Newman's score, defined as it is by very simple three-note progressions, plays into the desired mood but grows repetitive.
Camera (Deluxe color, Arri widescreen), Roger Deakins; editor, Tariq Anwar; music, Thomas Newman; music supervisor, Randall Poster; production designer, Kristi Zea; art director, Terri Carriker-Thayer; set decorator, Debra Schutt; costume designer, Albert Wolsky; sound (Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS), Danny Michael; supervising sound editor, Warren Shaw; re-recording mixers, Scott Milan, David Parker; assistant director, Joseph Reidy; casting, Ellen Lewis, Debra Zane. Reviewed at Paramount Studios, Los Angeles, Nov. 15, 2008. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 119 MIN.
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Posts: 17835 | Location: Phoenix, AZ | Registered: February 02, 2003
Originally posted by pacinofan: ... For his part, DiCaprio often achieves the kind of double register the film as a whole less consistently captures, as he indicates Frank's thought process in the split second before he decides what to say. At certain moments, the conjoined cerebral and emotional aspects of his characterization summon the spirit of Jack Nicholson's breakthrough performances around the time of "Five Easy Pieces."
Winslet's perf is less surprising, perhaps, if only because she has shown tremendous range throughout her career. April is a difficult role in that her mood changes sometimes seem inexplicable, but the thesp makes them all seem genuine, which resonates with Frank's occasional hints that she's possibly in need of psychiatric help. Winslet's starkly etched April is steely, strong and brittle, capable of great highs and lows as well as massive uncertainty.
Here's my fear coming: DiCaprio steals the show.
No Six Feet Under and The Shield in 2006, no Deadwood and The Shield in 2007, no Big Love in 2008..how the best shows don't even make the top ten list?
Originally posted by pacinofan: ... For his part, DiCaprio often achieves the kind of double register the film as a whole less consistently captures, as he indicates Frank's thought process in the split second before he decides what to say. At certain moments, the conjoined cerebral and emotional aspects of his characterization summon the spirit of Jack Nicholson's breakthrough performances around the time of "Five Easy Pieces."
Winslet's perf is less surprising, perhaps, if only because she has shown tremendous range throughout her career. April is a difficult role in that her mood changes sometimes seem inexplicable, but the thesp makes them all seem genuine, which resonates with Frank's occasional hints that she's possibly in need of psychiatric help. Winslet's starkly etched April is steely, strong and brittle, capable of great highs and lows as well as massive uncertainty.
Here's my fear coming: DiCaprio steals the show.
When reading the book I felt the husband was the more complex part while the wife becomes fairly one-note at a certain point.
Posts: 17835 | Location: Phoenix, AZ | Registered: February 02, 2003
Leo is in for one simple reason. It sounds like he is playing a character he hasn't played before. That is always a plus with the Academy.
From the reviews it sounds like Winslet has a "been there, done that" role. A net minus with the Academy. She might have a better chance with the Reader. It sounds like a different role for her.
A positive review from Gold Rush (blog for The Hollywood Reporter):
Raw trip to 'Revolutionary Road'
T.L. Stanley November 17, 2008
Leo and Kate just can't catch a break in the relationship department -- with each other, that is. And on screen, you see.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, in their first re-teaming since "Titanic" (and we all know how that one turned out), play a married couple on the verge of collapse in "Revolutionary Road," which screened for SAG members and some media types on Saturday at the Paramount lot.
Based on a novel by Richard Yates, the film roots around in Frank and April Wheeler's banal '50s suburban life and comes up with some of the most intimate action and raw emotion we've seen on screen in quite some time. (We'll cop to a lot of cringing, but it was for the right reasons.)
Winslet, who has "Revolutionary Road" and another potential awards-worthy performance in "The Reader" coming before year's end, said she was struck by the couple's commitment to each other even though it seemed obvious that they were doomed. "They're really in love," she said during the post-screening audience chat with the cast. "There's such honesty in the script, and such a level of brutality in that honesty."
DiCaprio, for his part, said he felt like a voyeur when he read the book.
"I felt almost embarrassed, like a fly on the wall during these savagely intimate conversations," he said. "I felt like I shouldn't be there."
Good thing he was, Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes said, because the drama was completely "actor dependent." (Mendes is married to five-time Oscar nominee Winslet). There had been a few unsuccessful attempts to turn to the book into a feature previously, and Mendes said it could've easily derailed again because of the tough material. "Serious movies aren't always in fashion," he said.
Especially not this year, where popcorn fare and superhero flicks have dominated the boxoffice. It's still to be determined how this and other adult-skewing films will make out.
DiCaprio and Winslet said that despite, or maybe because of, the intensity they had a blast shooting the film, even the pivotal breakfast scene (you'll know it when you see it) where they dissolved into uncontrollable giggles despite the seriousness of the situation. Numerous takes ensued.
Though the drama's fraught with tension, there is comic relief in the form of a Shakespearean fool-like character, scene-stealingly played by Michael Shannon, who puts his finger directly on the dysfunction of the couple during his day-passes from the nut farm. Give a person several dozen electro-shock treatments and watch the unvarnished truth come out!
We've been rethinking our five best picture picks since this screening, and are teetering on bumping something off and listing "Revolutionary Road." Winslet retains her spot among the best actress contenders and looks stronger than ever to finally break through with a win.
Unless you're mired in a hellish marriage, we'll be recommending this movie to you.
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2009 Oscars FYC:
Lead Actor - Richard Jenkins, The Visitor Lead Actress - Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road Supporting Actor - Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder Supporting Actress - Rosemarie DeWitt, Rachel Getting Married Original Screenplay - Thomas McCarthy, The Visitor
Posts: 2857 | Location: Why Do You Want To Know? | Registered: November 21, 2006
A mostly positive review from Glenn Kenny's blog Some Came Running:
"Revolutionary Road"
Glenn Kenny November 18, 2008
Ever since it was announced in the spring of 2007 (as I recall), I've been anticipating the film adaptation of Revolutionary Road with a mix of curiosity and dread. It's no secret I've been kind of mixed about the output of the obviously gifted director Sam Mendes. One of my first acts as film critic for Premiere magazine was to ridiculously over-rate American Beauty. The showy Road To Perdition did have its moments (including a great turn from the then-unknown Daniel Craig—one of Mendes' greatest strengths is that he know from good acting, and good actors), but Jarhead was a complete whiff. Largely because, as it turns out, the material itself—the movie's based on a facile Army memoir—was no great shakes. But Mendes' snotty "the Americans don't get me" comments after the picture deservedly tanked stuck in my craw. Still, you can't judge an artist by his interviews, Lou Reed excepted.
The source material for Revolutionary Road is pretty great shakes, the 1961 debut novel by Richard Yates, one of the most acute purveyors of uncomfortable truths post-war American literature produced. The terribly sad tale of a discontented couple in '50s suburbia, the novel is less a piece of social commentary (its prescience on certain issues aside) than a tone poem of despair. Given the broadness of American Beauty, my fear was that Mendes and screenwriter Justin Haythe were going to turn the piece into some kind of satire. A treatment of "hopeless emptiness" as a societal condition rather than an existential one.
Which is not to say that "hopeless emptiness" isn't necessarily a societal condition. It's just that in Yates' novel, the stress lays elsewhere. In any case, such were my fears, and I am happy to report that when I saw Revolutionary Road some time back, none of those fears were realized. It's a pretty splendid film, far and away the best Mendes has made.
Haythe's screenplay is a pretty deft compression of Yates' story, in which Frank and April Wheeler, upon concluding that their Connecticut suburban existence—Frank commutes to Manhattan every day to a soul-crushing corporate communications job, while April, a once would-be actress, tends the two kids at home—is a massive fail, hatch a scheme to move to Paris, where Frank can realize his potential while April brings home the bacon with some cushy (and likely chimerical) embassy-type job. The plan puts a temporary halt to the couple's increasingly heated back-biting as they amaze their friends and neighbors—nattering real-estate agent Mrs. Givings, nice-but-square neighbors Shep and Millie Campbell, Frank's dyspeptic alkie co-worker Jack—with their daring noncomformity. Soon enough actual life intrudes, in the form of unexpected pregnancy, Frank's unexpected (and deeply ironical) success at work, and the disturbing reality checks delivered by Mrs. Givings' mentally disturbed son John.
This is great stuff for actors, and the cast makes the most of it. Leonardo DiCaprio, as Frank, is a roiling knot of resentments who, among other things, hews to Nabokov's observation about adultery being the most conventional way of being unconventional. That is, when he's not lashing out over April's constant failure to appreciate how great he is to her. Kate Winslet's April toggles between irrational exuberance and coiled hatred, up until a transformation at the very end that's as terrifying and sad as HAL's meltdown at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Sounds like a weird analogy, but wait until you've seen it. David Harbour and Kathryn Hahn give some interesting contours to the "normal" Shep and Millie, Dylan Baker does his usual yeoman work as Jack. Michael Shannon's intensity as the disturbed John Givings skates on very thin ice; one over-modulated line reading or gesture and he could fall straight into caricature, but he never does. Only Kathy Bates' Mrs. Givings roams into American Beauty-style broadness—but truth to tell, the character is in fact just as broad in the novel, and provides the book (and the film) with a mordant but not exactly subtle punchline.
I allude to Frank's adultery above; the object of his c0cksmanship is a character named Maureen Grube; given that name and such, it should come as no surprise that the novel does not portray this young secretary particularly sympathetically. Yates had a misogynist streak, to be sure, which he transcended with his best characterizations. Grube isn't one of them. The young actress Zoe Kazan, who plays her in the film, noted in a recent New York Times interview that the character in the book is "a figure of ridicule" and determined not to play her that way. Her brief turn as Maureen is rather moving, conveying the character's wide-eyed, almost bovine admiration for Frank but never making her a bimbo.
As for Mendes, he lets the material and the actors do much of the work for him. He doesn't altogether eschew cinematic flourish, though. Working with ace cinematographer Roger Deakins, he tends to favor long takes here, but rather than aspiring to the fluidity of Ophuls/Preminger/Kubrick, he does his own thing with them—having a non-Steadicam-ed handheld keep up with Frank's impotent, enraged pacing around the house, or holding one character in focus with the background blurred, then shifting the focus to the other character for the remainder of the shot. It all works well, save for one overly pretty shot near the very end, by which time I was inclined to let him have his way.
I hear there's lots of, whaddya call it, Oscar buzz on this thing, and sentimental appeal on account of the Kate and Leonardo thing, and all. Which is all very sweet. That aside, this is a pretty uncompromised, and uncompromisingly bleak picture (although Mendes does let in a glimmer of hope at the end that's not in the novel and might not even be spotted right away by a lot of the novel's fans)—one that I hope finds an audience.
