It doesn't surprise me that, 11 years after he and Kate Winslet first paired, Leonardo DiCaprio still has a career. He's a pretty boy, and when he smiles, I'm sure there are women who just melt. That kind of thing is always going to draw crowds. No, what surprises me is that he still hasn't learned to act, or at least not very well. While, after the insufferable Titanic, Winslet has blossomed into one of the greatest actors of her generation, DiCaprio still seems uncomfortable and out of his depths on the screen, like he's doing his best to rationalize why he's up there.
It took three films for Martin Scorsese to draw an excellent performance out of him, and Steven Spielberg only one, so a director as capable as Sam Mendes certainly has a shot. But he hasn't done it with Revolutionary Road. Frank Wheeler is a troubled man trapped in an inadequate marriage in an inadequate country where he realizes an inadequate fantasy, but to see DiCaprio play it, he pouts and shouts like an angsty teenager.
It's 1955, and Frank has a boring 9-to-5 office job at Knox Business Machines, while his wife April (Winslet) wants to act. On the ride home from her play, Frank tells her, "I'm sorry you didn't turn out to be much of an actress." This leads to the first of many fights, and we can tell these are cracked people broken by the myth of the American Dream. Unfortunately, this isn't a quiet, smoldering film which builds and builds until it breaks us, too; no, it's all histrionics and melodrama right out of the gate.
Okay, so if DiCaprio doesn't sell Frank as an emotional cripple, surely Winslet has enough in her to make us invested in the Wheelers' plight to escape suburbia and run with their children to France, where they'll start a new life and reinvigorate their marriage, a plight that is doomed from the start. These past few years have taught us that Winslet can play just about any role you can throw at her, and while it's true that she's the best part of the film (her first with husband Mendes), I couldn't help but be disappointed that she too eventually succumbs to over-the-top theatrics. In the end, the biggest flaw in her performance is that she has to follow the script.
Article comments
1 - Jane
DiCaprio is brillant!
2 - Mara
DiCaprio is the most talented actor of his generation! I remember you He won a Golden Globe (eight nomenee) and has three Academy nomenee! (the first at 18 years old!. Winslet made another strong performance! She's the best!
3 - cat
so, Leo can't act? or can, but doesn't do it very well? which is it?? but apparently he did excellent in The Departed and Catch Me If You Can according to you. how was he able to achieve that then? i doubt being pretty helped that much. make up your mind.
4 - Arlo J. Wiley
cat:
A great director can do wonders with an average performer. He's certainly got it in him to do great things, he just usually doesn't.
5 - Andrew
You say much about the flaws but it's the flaws of the characters that make the movie. April is unstable, a dreamer, a malcontent which leads her to act in irrational ways. Helen is supposed to b false - she's a phoney, her husband shows that in the final scene. And I think Michael Shannon wasn't thrown in there to explain the story, he was there to make everyone else feel uncomfortable by challenging their hypocrisy.
6 - Dorian
Good review - with one exception. You are not right in your evaluation of Leonardo's talent. I guess, you don't like him and simply refuse to see what's clear and true - that he is one of the best actors around!!! Kate couldn't have acted as she did in this movie without Leo. She NEEDED HIM to give this great performance. And he is equally brilliant - no doubt!
As for John Givings, I kind of agree with you. His reaction during the second meeting of the Givings and the Wheelers is too blatant. But it's good acting, nevertheless.