This film, directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty) and starring Kate Winslet (his wife) as Leonardo DiCaprio, has been widely described as a bit of a dud, failing to elicit sympathy for the characters or involvement in their melodramatic conflict. But the film is best understood as a fable of sexual politics elevated to the level of Greek tragedy.
In telling its tale of oppressed female energy and confused masculinity, Revolutionary Road makes full use of 1950s Cold War conformity as a suitable social setting. It also strives to make such a tale universal and thus relevant to the social and economic confusions and contradictions of the noughties. And in doing so -- I've almost finished my sweeping summary of this film's grand ambitions -- it inevitably comments on the nature, status and functions of melodrama.
Winslet plays April Wheeler, a failed actress married to Frank, who has a boring marketing job at Knox, a company that makes 'business machines'. They live in a beautiful house in a picturesque Connecticut suburb, having settled there after a steamy meeting at a bohemian inner city party where Frank spots April across a smoky room and they eagerly discuss their artistic ambitions.
Now they have two children and are considered by their friends to be the 'it' couple, but both feel stifled by their narrow, artistically restricted lives and the social conformity of the era. Then April hatches a radical plan -- why not move to Paris to live? She could support her husband by working as a secretary while he freewheels, discovering what he really wants to do.
The film is based on the novel of the same name by Richard Yates. It brings together two stars who demonstrated a marvellous rapport in the steamroller success that was the film Titanic. Winslet and DiCaprio are comfortable enough with each other to generate an acceptance of how two such different characters might love each other passionately.
I haven't read the book but it appears to focus much more on April's difficult background as the cause of her present troubles. But the film does the opposite: April is a universal woman caught in an impossible situation; by today's standards, her artistic ambitions seem modest. In contrast, Frank's relationship with his father becomes increasingly central to the growing conflict between them. This relationship and its implications are the keys to the film.
In one of the film's early scenes Frank descends the stairs of a subway surrounded by a herd of men all in near-identical fedoras, punctuated by a few primly dressed women and the scene, down to its muted light browns, is sharply reminiscent of John Brack's 1955 painting 'Collins St, 5p.m'. But in fact Frank is on the way up, and his casual approach to his dull job produces a creative spurt that leads to the offer of a promotion. It is at this point that the viewpoints of April and Frank begin to diverge, and the sexual politics become paramount.
The often-extreme political repression that characterised 1950s America is never directly referred to but it dances around the edges of the film, the unacknowledged corollary of the appeal to conformity. China became communist in 1949, and the growing threat of nuclear war escalated the tension between the USA and the reviled Soviet Union.
The communist witchhunt of the McCarthy era is well known but what is almost unknown is the cruel and relentless pursuit of gays and lesbians in first government, and then general employment. They were barred from all federal employment by executive order and suspected gays and lesbians sacked; at one point more than 12 million workers 'faced loyalty-security investigations'. This policy bled through to state employment and companies with government contracts, while the police swooped on gay meeting places and conducted regular mass arrests: in the early 1950s the District of Columbia carried out more than 1000 in one year. (D'emilio, 'The homosexual menace: The politics of sexuality in Cold War America' in D'emilio, ed, Making Trouble: Essays on Gay History, Politics, and the University).
Why is this relevant to the film? In such an atmosphere the status of masculinity and the question of what constituted a man seemed to be vital to national security. Gays were characterised as vulnerable to blackmail and therefore the sharing of state secrets. Homosexuality weakened and threatened the boundaries of the state but it was also the enemy within: a conservative version of Freudianism posited homosexuality as deviant but also saw all men as possessing a degree of latent homosexuality.
Revolutionary Road is fascinated by the questions of manhood that preoccupied US suburbanites of the 1950s and it is the temptations of conventional masculinity that generate the conflict between April and Frank. Without giving too much away, Frank finds himself between two competing versions of masculinity: is it the taking on of male power and privilege, and the proving of one's heterosexual virility as provider and begetter of children? Or is it having the courage to refuse someone else's idea of one's vocation, and finding one's own bliss (to use modern terminology)? The question of whether a real man lets his wife support him, for example, is at the heart of Frank's uncertainty about their Paris plans.
In the film's continuing reference to Frank's father, who also worked at Knox but never had more than a lowly position, Mendes plays with Oedipal concerns, showing how Frank is tempted to both vindicate his father and beat him by securing a higher status. This preoccupation explains the fact that DiCaprio's character isn't that well modulated; he always seems on the edge of a self-righteous anger. In some ways, despite himself, Frank becomes the carrier of conventional values, not just their victim.
In fact, it is April who risks playing victim, for, as the film demonstrates, while there might be pay-offs for Frank in choosing conventional masculinity, conventional femininity would hold nothing for April, and the only alternative is madness.
The film is clearly feminist in this regard and its stunning cinematography (by Roger Deakins) is always studied, creating a hyperreality reminiscent of that other tribute to Douglas Sirk and the female melodrama, Far from Heaven. The lush autumnal tones of that film always framed the tragic heroine in an aesthetically appealing space, helping us to almost enjoy her pain and to understand why she could never fully rise above her circumstances.
In one of the final scenes in Revolutionary Road, Winslet's beauty is framed by a pale yellow, wistful, gentle morning sunlight that only highlights her inner turmoil. Mendes wants us to understand melodrama as essential to social and political concerns rather than as an artform that is inferior because it is considered feminine. (In keeping with the comparison to Far from Heaven, the immaculate fifties costumes are stunning and the interior of the Wheelers' house could have graced a home decoration magazine of the era.) The appeal to melodrama also helps to explain what has been criticised as an overly mannered performance by Winslet: it is meant to be.
The supports are mostly excellent. Michael Shannon has received an academy award nomination for his powerful portrayal of John, a mentally ill mathematician who is rudely truthful and the only character who understands the Wheelers' urge to flee. At some points in the film he seems to act as a Greek chorus, commenting frankly on their plans and motivations. Kathy Bates is a little predictable as John's mother, a needy real estate agent. And David Harbour and Kathryn Hahn both offer restrained contrast as the emotionally stifled neighbours willing to pay the price of conformity.
The score, by Thomas Newman, is restrained and faintly menacing, conventional in its signalling of the mood but not overly sentimental or intrusive.
What can the film offer us now? Is it even intended as social comment? Yes and no. Today, a radical ambition for some couples is to buy a modest house in some public transport-free outer suburb, while others build McMansions and strain their budgets to meet their mortgage payments. Status has never been more important, yet we are constantly told we have more lifestyle choices than ever before. In Australia, meanwhile, a convenient neglect of women's status means that it is actually drifting backwards, with the media gleefully 'helping' women with the double load of children and work while their husbands hold down jobs better suited to 1.5 people.
But the dilemma at the heart of Revolutionary Road -- how to retain creative freedom despite the conservatising forces of adult responsibility -- stark and simple as it is, is still highly relevant, and the gender issues, despite more reliable contraception, are still unresolved. The film forces us to ask ourselves: what are we doing with our lives? Whose agenda are we following? And what are the impacts on the spiritual and creative lives of women -- and men -- of the conventional scripts that capitalism and the nation state offer us?
Verdict: sombre, absorbing, relevant
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