Review: Revolutionary Road

With his latest film, Revolutionary Road, director Sam Mendes atones for much of the sin in his previous tale of suburban ennui, American Beauty. The 1999 Best Picture winner drew a cartoon version of American suburbia and then condemned it in a story that was simultaneously farfetched and intellectually lazy.

Working from evidently better source material in the form of a novel by WWII-generation American writer Richard Yates (adapted by Justin Haythe), Mendes has created a film that pierces the myths of postwar life so well in its first half that the dramatic tropes that dominate its second half are easier to take.

Revolutionary Road is the story of a young couple raising two children in a suburb of New York in 1955 who decide to drop everything and seek adventure overseas. They want to live life to the fullest and find their true vocations before it's too late. But there are surprises along the way, and one thing gradually turns into another.

The film kicks off in much the same world as the great TV series "Mad Men", but naturally, it delivers a more concentrated dose of the period. At its best, Revolutionary Road feels less self-aware than "Mad Men," though on the other hand, it's impossible to deliver in two hours the depth of a character like Don Draper.

As in American Beauty, Mendes (a former stage director) gives us a lot of monologues, set pieces and theatrical devices. But Revolutionary Road has a more sophisticated take on the staid universe that inspires rebellion in both films. The interplay of the dreams, glamour and reality of the Fifties, along with our nostalgia for the time, is exquisite. Roger Deakins's cinematography is excellent and the cast is generally impressive, especially leads Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. At its height, Revolutionary Road rises far above mere period drama.