MovieSet Dailies

One film that I’ve been looking forward to watching this year is Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road. I loved his first film, American Beauty, but Road to Perdition and Jarhead didn’t connect with me the same way. However, based on the first trailer for Revolutionary Road and the other things that I’ve read about the movie’s premise, my interest in Mendes latest effort is quite high.

Revolutionary Road was originally an acclaimed novel by Richard Yates and tells the story of a young suburban American couple living in the 1950s named Frank and April Wheeler. When we first meet these characters they’re barely in their twenties and full of dreams for their futures; Frank wants to travel the world while April has ambitions of being an actress. The two fall in love and decide to buy a home before starting their worldly adventures. Before they know it April is pregnant with the couple’s first child and Frank takes a job in the city. The years go by until they realize that they have become the model of the life that they claimed to detest, but now that they are encumbered with bills, children and responsibilities, what can they do to rejuvenate their existences?

Mendes took the same sort of suburban ennui and fashioned a great movie out of it with American Beauty and I’m hoping that he’ll rise to the challenge again with this picture. I also realize that the audience is probably looking at the marketing for this film and thinking it looks like a sequel to Titanic if Leonardo DiCaprio’s character had lived and married Kate Winslet’s Rose, but underneath the surface there’s a lot more to discover here.

Variety has just announced that they’re presenting the second and final trailer for Revolutionary Road. If your interest has been piqued (ooh, a five dollar word!) watch it and tell me what you think.

Author: Patrick