Revolutionary Road (2008)

I am a fan of both Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, and I know that both actors have grown tremendously since Titanic. I was convinced that Sam Mendes is a gifted director after watching American Beauty. It is not often that dysfunctional families get a chance to tell their story without trying too hard, and he told the story of Lester Burnham and his family particularly well.

All of this implies that Revolutionary Road is a movie that I should have watched over a year ago. However, after reading the storyline, I did not want to watch it just then.

I watched it when it played on HBO on 2 May this year. I did not manage to read the book on which it is based.

Caprio plays Frank Wheeler, and Winslet plays April Wheeler – an American family who lives on Revolutionary Road. Frank is a dreamer who has reconciled to his life (that takes the same path as his father), and April is the spirited lady who is determined to infuse life into, well, her life after the birth of two children.

In the midst of insipidity, April comes across an old photograph of Frank taken when he was in Paris. She then makes a plan to move the family to Paris – she would support the family by taking a secretarial position in a Government agency, and Frank would finally get the chance to have some time and think about what he really wants to do. After expressing initial reservations, Frank agrees to the unrealistic plan.

Then April discovers that she is pregnant with their third child, becomes irritable and tells Frank so after his insistence that something is not well with her. April knows Frank, and knows that he would not allow her to have the baby in France. She wants to abort her third child because she feels the child is hampering her plans – her chance of experiencing something different. Frank thinks the abortion is a disgusting idea, and tells her so. She is 10 weeks pregnant when this happens.

The tension between Frank and April is palpable and I could feel it in my living room, as if it was all happening right in front of me. Days go by, and April decides to undergo a (botched) self-performed abortion.

She loses her life.

The director’s sublime touch is noticeable in the scenes when Frank confesses to April (the night after she sleeps with their neighbour) that he has had an affair and she asking him why did he tell her now (displaying her indifference), when April threatens to scream if Frank touches her and then proceeds to scream the house down, where Frank and April have breakfast together for the last time, and where Howard Givings turns down the volume of his hearing aid after hearing his wife speak nastily regarding the Wheelers (after initially praising them to everybody she knew).

The movie left me feeling very sad. Tolstoy’s words came back to me – “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own.”

I thought of Frank and April long after the movie ended - the lead actors had made them come alive with their brilliant performances.

I was bewildered watching April get attached to her plans. Plans are meant to help you lead your life. They are not life itself.