Revolutionary Road

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"The rediscovery and rejuvenation of Richard Yates's 1961 novel Revolutionary Road is due in large part to its continuing emotional and moral resonance for an early 21st-century readership," Jane Morris wrote some time ago on the Amazon.com.uk website. The film version, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet under director Sam Mendes, will be released on 12.18.07 by DreamWorks.

pic stolen from justjared.com.

"April and Frank Wheeler are a young, ostensibly thriving couple living with their two children in a prosperous Connecticut suburb" -- filming was done in Darien, Connecticut -- "in the mid-1950s. However, like the characters in John Updike's similarly themed Couples, the self-assured exterior masks a creeping frustration at their inability to feel fulfilled in their relationships or careers.

"Frank is mired in a well-paying but boring office job and April is a housewife still mourning the demise of her hoped-for acting career. Determined to identify themselves as superior to the mediocre sprawl of suburbanites who surround them, they decide to move to France where they will be better able to develop their true artistic sensibilities, free of the consumerist demands of capitalist America. As their relationship deteriorates into an endless cycle of squabbling, jealousy and recriminations, their trip and their dreams of self-fulfillment are thrown into jeopardy.

"Yates's incisive, moving, and often very funny prose weaves a tale that is at once a fascinating period piece and a prescient anticipation of the way we live now. Many of the cultural motifs seem quaintly dated--the early-evening cocktails, Frank's illicit lunch breaks with his secretary, the way Frank isn't averse to knocking April around when she speaks out of turn--and yet the quiet desperation at thwarted dreams reverberates as much now as it did years ago. Like F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, this novel conveys, with brilliant erudition, the exacting cost of chasing the American dream."

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on June 4, 2007 at 11:38 AM

comment #1

Mike Binder says ...

This is an amazing novel. Perfect actually. Yates is brilliant. I can not wait for this film. The office scenes are so crisp and sadly current and the homelife with the locals and the neighbors is dark comedy at it's best. This is also perfect casting.

Posted by Mike Binder at June 4, 2007 12:03 PM

comment #2

BurmaShave says ...

This is coming out this year? Big news.

Posted by BurmaShave at June 4, 2007 12:13 PM

comment #3

MickTravis says ...

Rated "R."

For smokin'.

Posted by MickTravis at June 4, 2007 12:35 PM

comment #4

OddDuck says ...

Yep, the novel is pretty amazing, and is the kind of material that I think Mendes' can hit out of the ballpark. High hopes on this one.

Posted by OddDuck at June 4, 2007 12:57 PM

comment #5

Josh Massey says ...

I would be more interested if Sam Mendes had ever gotten the full potential out of his material.

Posted by Josh Massey at June 4, 2007 1:06 PM

comment #6

solange4 says ...

This would have been R rated anyhow regardless of smoking or not. Set in the 1950's , it would have been less than realistic to have no non-smokers and in the book, the characters smoke as a matter of daily life.

When the movie finally does come out (IMDB says December 19 2008), I'm sure pundits will be falling over themselves with the Titanic trinity of Leo, Kate, and Kathy Bates.

Posted by solange4 at June 4, 2007 1:14 PM

comment #7

erniesouchak says ...

Do you think Mendes will be able to make us forget "Jarhead"? I hope so.

Posted by erniesouchak at June 4, 2007 2:15 PM

comment #8

OddDuck says ...

Jarhead, indeed, sucked balls (in my opinion). But I thought Road To Perdition was close to perfect for what it was, and still think American Beauty was pretty decent (although it hasn't aged that well).

Gotta admit, the casting for Rev Road is pretty fucking awesome. There aren't too many actors who are more of a draw for me than KW and LD.

Posted by OddDuck at June 4, 2007 2:24 PM

comment #9

Arizona Joe says ...

I am going to the library for the book, posthaste.

If there were people disaffected by the consumerist society in the 1950s, it's surprising there are not a whole lot more now. Just like it is surprising we don't have more antiwar demonstrations on college campuses. I guess the students are too busy learning marketing and finance, so they can join the consumerist society.

Mendes is very shrewd with his choices of subjects. Maybe he is trying to tell people something, without overt didacticism.

Given the cast and the release date, obviously this has Oscar potential. We can only hope the film makes the suburban hoi polloi, who are duped and mesmerized by the business fascists, reflect a little bit.

As far as the smoking, everybody did back then, including a high percentage of the licensed physicians.

Posted by Arizona Joe at June 4, 2007 2:28 PM

comment #10

kingofnails says ...

I agree with previous commentators. The book is indeed first rate -- sad, insightful, and surprising -- but also bleak, bleak, bleak...no light at the end of the tunnel. Additionally, the script is by Justin Haythe, a young british writer who penned the Robert Redford/Helen Mirren vehicle The Clearing. The movie itself was so-so, but his script was absolutely first-rate, obviously the work of a master craftsman. Here's hoping for something great.

Posted by kingofnails at June 4, 2007 3:03 PM

comment #11

MickTravis says ...

Tell me more about the 50s and smoking.

Anyway, isn't Darien also where "The Ice Storm" was set and filmed? What is it with these danged WASPS?

Posted by MickTravis at June 4, 2007 3:13 PM

comment #12

Arran says ...

I'm starting to think Leo has some sort of clause that allows him to smoke in every movie as he sees fit.

Posted by Arran at June 4, 2007 3:31 PM

comment #13

nemo says ...

"I'm starting to think Leo has some sort of clause that allows him to smoke in every movie as he sees fit."

Someone just mentioned Helen Mirren -- I always thought her "Prime Suspect" contract included a clause requiring that once per episode she was to rise radiantly from the bed of a handsome black man at least 15 years her junior.

Posted by nemo at June 4, 2007 3:43 PM

comment #14

austin111 says ...

It's a bleak book and the characters seem to be trapped like flies on glue paper unable to escape less than satisfactory childhoods, suburban sameness, meaningless jobs, and marital woes including unwanted children. It's the kind of thing that's extraordinarily imagined and written and yet you almost dread reading it because you do see how as it progresses things won't be getting better. No rays of sunshine will be coming over he horizon at the end. The awful thing is that the children seem destined to end up not much better off than mommy and daddy. It reminded me all too well of life in the 50's, which is too often given a nostalgic tweak....but not here.

Posted by austin111 at June 4, 2007 6:28 PM

comment #15

BurmaShave says ...

I don't know how anyone could have anything but at least begruding respect for Jarhead. Probably not enough battle scenes. Are you guys still mad we never saw the aliens at the end of Contact?

Posted by BurmaShave at June 4, 2007 7:01 PM

comment #16

erniesouchak says ...

Are you kidding me? "Jarhead" is an embarrassing turd by any definition of the term. That, on top of the constipated angst of "Road to Perdition," makes me think Sam Mendes might only be as good as an Alan Ball script.

Posted by erniesouchak at June 4, 2007 8:27 PM

comment #17

le corbeau says ...

"Someone just mentioned Helen Mirren -- I always thought her "Prime Suspect" contract included a clause requiring that once per episode she was to rise radiantly from the bed of a handsome black man at least 15 years her junior."

Hell, it should have been in HIS contract.

As for Revolutionary Road, ye gods, this sounds like the most fun I've had at a movie theater since 21 Grams. Makes me want to watch Mr. and Mrs. Bridge again, and see this kind of thing done without dripping undergraduate contempt for its subjects.

Posted by le corbeau at June 4, 2007 9:11 PM

comment #18