ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies

RICHARD YATES is one of the great American novelists of the 20th century who died in relative obscurity in 1982. His reputation has grown as more people have discovered a body of work that examines all the broken hopes and shattered lives of people who felt betrayed by the American Dream of the 1950s.

Revolutionary Road was published in 1961 and is generally considered Yates’ finest novel. The long awaited film version will not disappoint his fans even if it does remove some of the sting and bleakness from his writing.

In 1950s Connecticut, Frank Wheeler (Leonardo Di Caprio) and his wife April (Kate WInslet) appear to be the epitome of the American Dream. Frank has a lucrative advertising job in New York. They have an idyllic home in suburbia, two children and a life that would be the envy of many.

It is not enough. April always thought they were destined for greater things, that they would not settle for the same life as the common herd. Her suggestion that they move to Paris and start afresh is enthusiastically embraced by Frank. When plans for the great escape start to falter, April comes to realise she is trapped in a life she hates with a husband she has grown to despise.

Revolutionary Road is impeccably cast with Di Caprio reminiscent of a young Jack Nicholson in the intensity and self-loathing he brings to Frank. There is excellent support from Kathy Bates as a kindly neighbour and from Michael Shannon as her unstable son John, a man who can see right through the sham of the Wheelers marriage.

The film may be a little too tame and tasteful in places, but does capture a sense of lives curdled by disappointment and a marriage doomed to end in tragedy

Nationwide release

Director: Sam Mendes
Cast: Leonardo Di Caprio, Kate Winslet, Michael Shannon, Kathy Bates, Dylan Baker, Richard Easton
Screenwriter: Justin Haythe based on the novel by Richard Yates
Certificate: 15
Running time: 119 mins
Country: USA
Year: 2008