Revolutionary Road
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.90 You Save: $15.09 (75%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.39 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Revolutionary Road
Movie Review: DVD Extras Offer Fascinating Insight into the Powerful Film
Summary: 5 Stars
There is an audio commentary by director Sam Mendes and screenwriter Justin Haythe. According to Mendes, the BBC owned the rights to Yates' book and asked Haythe to adapt it four years ago. They shot the entire film on location and almost completely in sequence so that DiCaprio and Winslet really lived with their characters. Mendes says that the look of the film was not inspired by other films but a documentary about the suburbs and photographs from the era. Haythe talks at length about adapting the book to film - what was left out, changed and so on.
"Lives of Quiet Desperation: The Making of Revolutionary Road" is a very classy featurette on how this film came together. Winslet was a big fan of the book and really wanted to make it into a film. Mendes had just finished Jarhead (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) and didn't want to jump right into another film but Winslet worked on him for a year until he agreed to do it. It also took Winslet two years to convince DiCaprio to do the film and he loved the script and the chance to work with her again. This featurette also touches upon the challenge of working on location and how the fantastic look of the film was achieved.
Finally, there are five deleted scenes with optional commentary by Mendes and Haythe. There is a scene that was to reveal the Wheeler children earlier on in the film. There is also more footage of the Wheelers visiting with their next-door neighbors with DiCaprio delivering an excellent monologue that reveals more about his character. We see more footage of Frank commuting to work. There is also a flashback with the Wheelers seeing their new home. Mendes and Haythe talk about why this footage was cut and put it into context with the rest of the film.
Movie Review: Brilliant!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Kate Winslet and Leonardo Di Caprio are brilliant in this very sharp satire of American life and practice in the 50s in the USA.
The film has many layers to it, and it posits a dissatisfaction with life in particular and in general in a world that is completely artificial. The dramatic escape plan, suggested and then demanded by the wife, is merely an extension of the American sense of se;f removal to another "site" in order to get going with USA values. It does not work.
The breeding family of then and now comes under scrutiny and is found wanting; religious values or ideas are not in evidence, and so there is no leadership in this quarter nor in any other quarter. What the film exposes too are the absurd verbal solutions to problems, hence the wife constantly asking her husband to shut up, and he will not do so, as babble takes over for reason and engulfs the wife and the whole neighborhood.
What keeps the structure of society in this film going are cliches, notions, attitudes, phrases that preach and teach nothing. The fear of the wife and her final actions have the quality of truth when set beside the options she has..suburban death, chronic dissatisfaction on all levels.
There is more, but I will not spoil it; see this film if you are excited by ideas and deeper cosiderations than sit coms and melodramas serve up. This is film as art, acting as perhaps the only route to go for us in understanding the darkness that hates the light.
The other reviews that have issues with boredom or surprise are Mall Movie goers. This is not for entertainment seekers, but for mature thinkers and lovers of film as art.
Movie Review: Di Caprio is his generation's Jodie Foster..
Summary: 5 Stars
Sam Mendes surpasses his oscar winning American Beauty with a shattering portrayal of a husband and wife trying to hold on to any dream left in their path. Too often this film has been touted as "a study of a couple in suburban life". This may be why it got buried in the oscar race. Audiences and critics missed the importance of the story entirely.
Mendes raises many complicated questions by the film's ending and he doesn't offer very many easy answers. But this is exactly why the movie is so important and compelling from beginning to end. Was she completely rational to want to move to Paris or was she irresponsible and bordering on insantiy? Was he a coward for deciding not to go or was he brave and sane for trying to do the responsible thing? Mendes has made a film that reminds one of Elia Kazan at his best. The script brilliantly evokes Tennesee Williams at this best.
Kate Winslet is of course superb as the lead character. There has not been such a portrayal of a complex character like this since viviegn leigh as Blanche Du Bois in Streetcar. Michael Shannon is frightening as the next door neighbor,who comes across as some kind of bizarre prophet to the couple.
But it is Leonardo Di Caprio who really captivates in this movie. Like he did as a teenager in some of his best film work, he evokes a vulnerability and daring that makes him a great actor. He has matured into the adult actor in an astouding way like the great jodie foster. Maybe it's easy to overlook this with his brilliant portrayal in Titanic that many can't forget. But if you see this movie, see it for his performance.
Movie Review: From the Titanic to suburban hell
Summary: 5 Stars
Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio costar in "Revolutionary Road" as April and Frank Wheeler, a typical suburban couple living a typical domestic life in 1955 suburbia. To outsiders, it appears that the Wheelers have it all: a lovely house, two beautiful children, a steady income, etc. The truth of the matter is, both April and Frank are absolutely miserable. Frank is stuck in the same stupid job his father had before him, and he doesn't think April appreciates all his hard work, which causes him to seek comfort outside his marriage in the arms of one of his floozy secretaries. Meanwhile, April is bored out of her mind with being a mother and a housewife. Desperate for a change of pace, she proposes to Frank that they pack up their kids and move to Paris in order to turn their boring lives into an adventure. At first Frank is all for the idea, until he's offered a big promotion at work. Unfortunately, the change of plans doesn't sit well with April, and the Wheelers soon find their lives headed on a downward spiral of self-destruction,
"Revolutionary Road" is based on the novel by Richard Yates, and it is an extremely good adaptation of the book. Winslet and DiCaprio both deliver the best performances of their careers so far, definitely deserving of Oscar nominations. The film is incredibly depressing but brilliantly well-done. It illustrates the importance of following your dreams before it's too late. (Also, in my opinion, it's a wonderful pro-choice film...you will see why during the last 15 minutes.) This is definitely one of the best films I've seen in a long time, and I highly recommend it.
Movie Review: Breaking away from the ordinary.
Summary: 5 Stars
"Revolutionary Road" is brought to life by the extraordinary performances of Leonardo Di Capria (Frank Wheeler) and Kate Winslet (April Wheeler). The movie portrays a young couple who are stuck in a rut and decide at one point to make a major change in their lives and move from Connecticut to Paris. This sounds all well and good, but then various new options and obstacles begin to mount. He's offered a better paying job, and she gets pregnant, and so instead of being able to make a break for a new life the prison of their lives begins to get tighter. It is apparent early on that April is unhappy with her life. On the other hand Frank seems resigned to his vacuous life. April is frustrated with their lives and grows resentful of Frank's complacency. There is a chilling scene, the morning after their big argument, when Frank comes to breakfast. April acts like one of the Stepford wifes, behaving with utmost perfection, like a dutiful wife, as if nothing ever happened the night before. Frank seems bewildered, but relieved, and doesn't seem to think too much about what his wife's chilling transformation could mean.
Sam Mendes (Road to Perdition, American Beauty) beautifully directs this movie, which initially seems trapped in the inertia of its all too idealized depiction of 1950's America, but then Mendes takes us down this disturbing path where everything that is too perfect, sterile and bland is revealed as a kind of prison for this couple, and this facilitates in highlighting the underlining tension between Frank and April. This is a monumental movie that takes its time in order to weave it web.