A Chilling Stroll Down "Revolutionary Road"

Shock value in art is generally something I frown upon because, if for no other reason, it is a cheap attempt to elicit a visceral response from the audience. There is superficial shock effect, as might be seen in a low budget horror movie or an absurdly avant-garde flick (see: “Vampiyaz”), which pale in comparison to subtle, unnerving aspects woven into works that effect long after leaving the museum, after pulling out of the theater parking lot, after closing the cover. Emily Dickinson claimed, “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know it is poetry.” If her description holds true, then the movie “Revolutionary Road” is, no doubt, a lyric told from multiple perspectives, often without words.

Sam Mendes tells the story of an unrecognized, or unspoken, emptiness of the American dream in a way similar to his 1999 release “American Beauty,” though this rendition lacks Kevin Spacey’s lighthearted quips that assuage the bluntness of the broken lives exposed in the movie. Revolutionary Road pulls no punches while maintaining a certain calculated tact throughout, illustrating the nightmare that often haunts those stepping into adulthood: the perpetual routine of a dull existence. Mendes holds a magnifying glass to the deterioration of the Wheeler’s, DeCaprio and Winslet, lives, crumbling within the suffocation and apathy that result from the dynamic of their relationship.

John Givings, played by Michael Shannon, is the one breath of fresh air in the story, a character that incisively exposes the reality of the Wheeler’s dysfunction and seems to be the only one in the movie to see things as they truly are. "Plenty of people are on to the emptiness," John says to Frank and April, "but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness." It is a curiously perfect surprise to see Shannon receive an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor, as he is onscreen for no more than twenty electric and revelatory minutes.

As the movie displays continually more unnerving callousness and unresolved conflict in an intimate relationship, it becomes clear that April and Frank are trapped not by their environment but by one another and the disappointments and fears they harbor. They each seek escape, though it is from the cages of their bodies and minds – not a particular situation, as they suppose. Revolutionary Road is a meditation on human fragility and the futility of changing another, or oneself, with one’s own self-interested hands.

No obvious resolution emanates to ease the hearts and minds of viewers as they sit watching the credits, trying to muster the strength to rise from their seats after having trudged through the complex swamp of emotions and implications conjured by the movie. It begs the questions, What would have changed had the Wheelers left suburbia? What is it inside of us that longs for escape, for freedom from routine? Seeing the holy in the mundane has to be more than a trivial desire in life because we live in particulars: parking in the same garage after work each day, seeing the same neighbors through the kitchen window. Revolutionary Road is a call to find meaning in seeming emptiness, in the un-romanticized aspects of life, to search inside one another and realize the deep mysteries and beauty that yearn for discovery.

(originally published by rednoW)