The despair of Revolutionary Road

Revolutionary Road is the story of every couple loving, evolving and eventually drifting in the inevitable tide of time. A melancholic tale of aspirations and dreams mauled by the mechanical routine, trampled into dust by the march of the daily workforce.  Based on a novel by Richard Yates, their trials and tribulations mirror those of people bound by the vows of holy matrimony.

Set in the nineteen fifties, Frank and April Wheeler are the residents of Revolutionary Road, Connecticut.  Frank has a marketing job at Knox Business Machines and April is the quintessential housewife who still grieves for her failed acting career. The young couple revels in their unconventionality and their ability to shun the American dream of stability and familial peace. When domestic monotony starts to build, April suggest they leave this mundane existence and move to Paris, to start a new exciting life and pursue their passions. But this never transpires. In a futile attempt to revive the romance, the two indulge in a momentary juvenile rush of passion, leading to April’s unplanned pregnancy. This new development turns into their inner demon, prodding and destroying their will to uproot their unfulfilling yet stable lives.

The ultimate paradox occurs when a maniacal outsider forces them to realize the hopeless emptiness that April and Frank have been trying to disguise with their perfect family, a perfect house and the perfect life. One is lead to believe that every time the couple reaches for the sweet taste of freedom, the luring tentacles of the domestic monster pull them back. A new day dawns and yesterday has been swept clean off the board. The recurrent nightmare continues, each day is a lie, a happy fallacy at that. The helplessness is so beautifully apparent in their eyes; their silent screams of anguish are very close to home. Torn by this despair, April tries to abort the baby herself and eventually dies in the process.

The film manages to retain the grave mood of impending, terrible vicissitudes. The visual cues of discord between the married couple are blatantly obvious, the silent barrier between them bellows thunderous.

Different lives, different despondency. The outlets of our escapism may vary, but we are all trying in vain, there is no release from the life we lead, and this despair and the greed for something better, is what makes us so pathetically human. The bitter truth is that we are all troubled by our meagre existence. The mundane life we lead is precisely the one we snickered upon as youngsters.  Humans are an unhappy race; we revel in despair, find sanctity in sadness. Maybe that was the price we paid for acquiring social intelligence. Be wary of complacency, this sweet intoxicating venom will slowly sweep through your mind, rotting it bit by bit; the lure of shallow success shall seep through your identity, eating away your dreams.

Brilliant performances by Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. This being their second film after ‘Titanic’, it is simple to acknowledge the contradictory portrayal of love in these two films. Kate so beautifully emotes her pain and entrapment that the audience vehemently wishes for an end to this lie she is living. One poignant line in the film sums it all up. “No one forgets the truth Frank, they just get better at lying”.