Revolutionary Road
15, Nationwide
Revolutionary Road is Sam Mendes’s adaptation of the celebrated 1961 novel by Richard Yates and it may be too faithful to the book — big chunks of dialogue have been directly lifted — although, on the other hand, if it were less faithful then everyone would say it isn’t faithful enough, which proves what I would have said all along if I hadn’t just thought of it: literary novels are buggers to film.
But here it is, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet starring as Frank and April Wheeler, a young couple in 1950s America who, when they first marry, believe they are special and destined to be, as she puts it, ‘wonderful in the world’, but, seven years and two children in, where are they? They are just like any other married couple — he commutes to a job selling adding machines; she stays home — and live on Revolutionary Road, which could not be less revolutionary.
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