Leonardo DiCaprio, Terrible Husband

Critics have never taken Sam Mendes entirely seriously as a movie director. Why? The man is consistently drawn to interesting, unusual material (the graphic novel Road to Perdition, Anthony Swofford’s military memoir Jarhead), he casts interesting, prestigious actors, and works with only the finest cinematographers (Conrad Hall in his first two films, Roger Deakins in his second two) — and yet here is, having delivered his fourth film, Revolutionary Road, and still he’s not entirely regarded as a “real” director. Maybe critics simply will never forgive him for winning the Oscar for his debut feature, American Beauty, which many have come to regard as a glib, shallow satire of suburban ennui. Or maybe there’s still something just a little too studied, too controlled about Mendes’ directorial style — he directs his films with intelligence but without a natural cinematic flair. You can sense him thinking over every shot, and you always know exactly what effect he’s hoping to achieve with them. He doesn’t seem like the kind of director who surprises himself on the set — or, worse, who wants to surprise himself. A really exciting director needs to let a little craziness leak into the frame now and then, and Mendes is perhaps too sane for his own good.

But that tension between Mendes’ caution and his artistic ambitions makes him an unexpectedly good choice to direct the film version of Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates’ masterful 1961 novel about Frank and April Wheeler, a young husband and wife who chafe at the conformity of life in the Connecticut suburbs but who are ultimately too weak-willed to break free of it. Leonardo DiCaprio is an interesting choice to play Frank, who commutes every day to a copywriting job he hates, and who considers himself cut out for a more interesting, stimulating life. Maybe in Paris, where he spent some time in his youth. But when April (Kate Winslet) suggests that they take their savings and actually make that idea a reality — to actually move to Paris, where she will work as a secretary while he “finds himself” — Frank, perhaps secretly aware that he’s not the brilliant mind he holds himself out to be, gets cold feet and seizes on April’s unplanned pregnancy as an excuse for them to stay put.

On most levels, Revolutionary Road is an impeccably made film. The production design by Kristi Zea (a great talent who also designed GoodFellas and Silence of the Lambs) finds a way to make the Wheelers’ home seem cozy yet prisonlike; Roger Deakins’ photography hits just the right note of autumnal melancholy, even when the Wheelers spend a day at the beach; and the supporting performances by Kathy Bates (as a cheerfully “Yoo-hoo!”ing realtor) and Michael Shannon (as her emotionally disturbed son) are comical without becoming caricatures. And the big, ugly arguments that erupt between Frank and April are terrifyingly convincing — full of the kind of wounding accusations that only people who’ve lived with each other and know each other’s true nature can invent. And there’s a terrific last shot, albeit one lifted straight out of the novel.

It’s puzzling, then, that Revolutionary Road can come so close to being an absolutely great movie, only to fail somehow to deliver that final knockout punch to the emotions. Could it be that all that craftsmanship holds you at too much of a remove for most of the running time? A lot of the film does seem to be taking place under glass — we’re looking at DiCaprio as he disembarks from his train, one anonymous, gray-suited figure among hundreds, instead of seeing this world through his eyes, knowing what it feels like to be swallowed up by the crowd. (Yates’ book was written from Frank's point of view while the movie feels like it’s told from the outside — a crucial difference.) The final sequence involving Winslet’s character is also unsatisfying — perhaps Mendes is aiming for artful discretion, but it comes off more as cold and dispassionate.

I admire Mendes and screenwriter Justin Haythe for not using any voiceover narration, but by failing to find another way to take us inside these characters, they gloss over the central point of Revolutionary Road — to make us recognize that Frank and April’s failings, their fears and compromises, are our failings too, and that our own lack of nerve does as much to trap us in our routines as society does.

I suppose I’m saying that Revolutionary Road would have been a better movie if it had bummed me out even more. But Cheeveresque suburban dramas are like film noir: the bleaker the ending, the better.