City of Films

Revolutionary Road (2008)

My first thought watching Revolutionary Road was “what if Jack had lived?” Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet return together a decade after we saw Titanic take over the world.  This time they are living the American Dream in 1955 suburbia.  Frank and April Wheeler, in the seventh year of their marriage, have fallen into a life that appears to most as being perfect. They live in the Connecticut with two young children. Frank commutes to New York City where he works in an office job that he hates while April stays at home as a housewife which is a constant reminder of the acting life she gave up on.  One day, April suggests that they move to Paris – a city where Frank visited during the war and loved, but where April has never been – as a means to rejuvenate their life.  Initially skeptical, Frank ultimately agrees to April’s plan. When circumstances change around the Wheelers, April decides she will do whatever she has to get herself out of her unhappy existence.

The Scene Stealer (after the jump) from Revolutionary Road does include DiCaprio and Winslet, who are fantastic throughout the film, but this scene is more to do with Michael Shannon’s character John Givings.  He is simply scary in this role as a former mathematician who is now under psychiatric care in a mental institution. John has no inhibition about asking the Wheelers direct personal questions and offering his blunt assessment of their dissatisfaction with marriage, work, and life; his parents are horrified, but the Wheelers admire him for his candor. However, when John learns the Wheelers have canceled their move to Paris, he becomes agitated and begins to insult them, saying he feels sorry for them.

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