4/4  I Am Grateful For One Thing...
Truly wonderful and outstandingly brilliant, "Revolutionary Road" brings all facets of marriage, love, relationships, children, disappointment, and realizations to the forefront of the lives of Frank and April Wheeler, two mediocre citizen... (read full)

2/4  Great acting...all else, boring
The acting was brilliant by everyone. But, nothing happened, which was probably the point, to show us how boring and monotonous are lives are. The "Keeping up with the Jones's" syndrome. However, I found it boring and unentertaining, whi... (read full)

3.5/4  Revolutionary Road
Sam Mendes is at his best with this kind of subject matter. Revolutionary Road is probably his best work since American Beauty, although I loved JarHead as well. I was deeply moved by this movie and it was extremely pressing for me. I felt... (read full)

3/4  See It
The passion, the anger, the sadness, and the pain. This movie is absolutely emotional. Aspect for your emotions to really be touched in this film. Kate Winslet deserved the Best Actress Oscar for this movie. She takes acting to another lev... (read full)

2.5/4  Watch once
A fairly interesting film with good performances and great looking cinematography. It is miserable people being miserable and that it is interesting to watch just to see where it goes, although I dislike the fact that it skips over any hap... (read full)

3.5/4  Second Best Movie of 2008
I had pretty high expectations from this movie. Mostly stemming from Mendes amazing work on several films (his best being American Beauty). This is not as good, but is still damn good none the less. I also really want to see it for Kate... (read full)

4/5 Well-Acted
  by catsandbooks (NM)
Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio play Frank and April, a young couple with two children living a comfortable lifestyle. Frank has a good job in the city and April, who failed at being an actress, is a housewife. April is very unhappy; she looks at her husband and herself as "special people" who were not meant to live ordinary lives so convinces her husband to move to Paris, where she intends to work and where she hopes he will find the person he's meant to become. The two seem to communicate at different levels and April verges on severe depression. Frank is offered an opportunity to move up in his company and begins to have second thoughts about moving to Paris. He has an affair with a coworker and April has a one-nighter with a neighbor. The movie moves forward via the characters' interactions with one another and constant misunderstandings. Winslet and DiCaprio, together for the first time since "Titanic", have a chemistry on-screen that works for them. They play off one another well and their confrontations are realistic.

5/5 Easily one of the best films of 2008
  by One-Line Film Reviews (Easton, MD)
The Bottom Line:

It didn't get the Best Picture nomination it deserved and Kate Winslet got a trophy for her inferior performance in The Reader, but Sam Mendes's brilliant adaptation of Revolutionary Road deserves to be recognized for the way it breathes new life into the cliched subject of American suburbia: with its perfect cast, beautifully stark cinematography, vitriolic screenplay and agonizing conclusion, this is a searing and nearly great film.

3.5/4

4/5 The chickens, inevitably, come home to roost.
  by Salvatore Rossellini
"It's as though not even that most basic level of imaginative thought had been admitted into consciousness to cause the slightest disturbance. A century of destruction unlike any other in its extremity befalls and blights the human race--scores of millions of ordinary people condemned to suffer deprivation upon deprivation, atrocity upon atrocity, evil upon evil, half the world or more subjected to pathological sadism as social policy, whole societies organized and fettered by the fear of violent persecution, the degradation of individual life engineered on a scale unknown throughout history, nations broken and enslaved by ideological criminals who rob them of everything, entire populations so demoralized as to be unable to get out of bed in the morning with the minutest desire to face the day...all the terrible touchstones presented by this century, and here they are up in arms about Faunia Farley."

Philip Roth, "The Human Stain"

Whose *individual* fault is it that over 40 million Americans are without health insurance, and millions of others underinsured?

Whose *individual* fault is it that millions of US manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas?

Whose *individual* fault is it that decent, good-paying -- jobs with a future -- are far fewer today that they were in the 1950s and 1960s?

Whose *individual* fault is that corporations have been so deregulated as to have created a, by and large, UNPUNISHED crime spree on Wall Street?

Whose *individual* fault is it that given the gun laws in the United States, the US has the highest rate of death by handguns of any nation in the world?

Whose *individual* fault is it that US workers work harder and work longer but are paid less than workers in all other AINs (advanced industrial countries)?

Whose *individual* fault is it that American culture (art, movies, television) has been so degraded, so debased? Who is responsible for the glorification of violence, the celebration of greed and cynicism, the appeal by the media to the worst instincts of the public.

Whose *individual* fault is it that the gap between the rich and the poor and the gap between the rich and the middle class is as great now as it was in 1929?

Whose *individual* fault is it that 45% of US wealth resides in hands of 1% of the population -- and that only 20% of US wealth resides in the hands of 80% of the population?

Whose *individual* fault is it that countless Americans were forced off Social Security disability benefits -- benefits they had rightly earned -- by the Reagan Administration's changes to federal real estate taxation laws?

Whose *individual* fault was that the Clinton Administration's so-called "welfare reform bill" threw hundreds of thousands of people, children primarily, into poverty?

Whose *individual* fault is it that the US has the highest poverty rate -- by far! --of any advanced industrial country?

Whose*individual* fault is it that the US rate of *childhood* poverty is 22%; the highest poverty rate -- by far! -- of any of advanced industrial country?

Whose *individual* fault is it that the war in Iraq has, to date, resulted in the death of over 1 million Iraqis, many of them civilians, many of them infirm and many of them children?

Whose *individual* fault is it that the workers not just in America but throughout the world are experiencing an economic catastrophe unlike any since 1929?

Whose *individual* fault is it that both the Republican Party AND the Democratic Party have allowed the US to become a police state -- shredding the Constitution, invading individual privacy, creating a climate of fear and mistrust?

Whose *individual* fault is global warming?

Whose *individual* fault is sweatshop labor?

Whose *individual* fault is it that corporate welfare now stands at $125 billion per year -- dwarfing the welfare given to the poor, the elderly and the inform?

Whose *individual* fault is it that labor laws, environmental laws and consumer laws passed in the 1960s and 1970s have been under constant *bipartisan* attack for the past 40 years?

Whose fault is it that white collar criminals either go free, get off with a slap on the wrist or else, if they're simply incompetent, get billions of dollars in bailout money?

Whose *individual* fault is it the US has the highest rate of incarceration of any country in the world. ... Not just as compared to advanced industrial nations but as compared to ALL nations? (Note: 1 out of every 135 people living in America is in jail.)

Whose *individual* fault is it that while US corporate profits and CEO salaries have skyrocketed in the past 40 years, over the same period of time typical American wages have stagnated?

Whose *individual* fault is it that in 1981 the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 947 while today it's around 10,000 -- and a year ago was at 14,000? -- while, as noted, middle class and lower middle class salaries have remained stagnant?

Finally, you write in your comment, Ryan that: "We have plenty of control over what happens in our lives, and it's chiefly dependent on the choices we make."

Tell that to the 20% of the people in the world who live on $1 a day or less -- 50% of the world's population living on $2 a day or less.

What sad is that while you "blame the victim" -- tell him or her that it's their fault, that they're where they are because of their, as you put it, "individual faults" -- you no doubt, at the same time, pat yourself on the back for accomplishments you've achieved, while (evidently) totally oblivious to the social, economic and political advantages you have.


This so-called "documentary" is beneath contempt.

The narrator, Peter Jennings, does something quite revealing at the beginning of the program. He points that there are so many conspiracies regarding the Kennedy assassination that "we don't have time to delve into all of them." ... And so what does the program do? It delves into *none* of them.

In other words, here's a purported documentary that seeks to debunk the idea that JFK was killed as part of a conspiracy and then conveninelty sets aside a consideration of *any* of the conspiracy theories being offered.

Moreover, along with this set-aside of conspiracy theories there is, more to the point, a set-aside of the truckloads of FACTS that back up these various conspiracy theories!

No mention is made of the fact that the majority of people present at the assassination site, including the police, pointed to and rushed the grassy knoll.

No mention is made of the witnesses who swore that they saw Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby together before the assassination.

No mention is made of the fact that assassination attempts, via a conspiracy, were foiled in Chicago and Miami before Kennedy went to Dallas.

No mention is made of the unlikely number of "accidental deaths" of key witnesses in the case.

No mention is made of Kennedy's promise after the Bay of Pigs fiasco to "shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces."

And on and on.

Instead of pointing out these facts and attempting to rebut them, the program simply ignores them.

In place of an intellectually honest confrontation with these facts, the program -- rather I should say the "show" -- spends an inordinate amount of time on:

a.) Oswald's "personality" -- in other words his a priori predisposition to being (guess what?) a lone nut. (Lone nut, lone gunman, get it?)

b.) Oliver Stone's obviously flawed and at times ridiculous movie "JFK." and

c.) Jim Garrison's inconsequential trial of Clay Shaw.

Interestingly enough, the show does something that is *common* to all claims that Oswald and Oswald alone killed Kennedy. It maintains that the reason why people are inclined to believe in a conspiracy is that they simply can't accept that a great man such as John Kennedy was shot by a loser, a nut, "a nobody." That the balance between a great man, on the one hand, versus a lone assassin on the other just doesn't sit well with the American public.

But this is nonsense. The majority of Americans don't believe the Warren Commission, especially today, because they know incontrovertible *facts* about the American government and American mainstream and how they operate. ...

They know that not just the government but mainstream media *lie* about what the government does. It knows full well about the lies regarding Vietnam, the lies regarding Watergate, the lies regarding the Iraq War.

It konws full well about the myriad lies put forth by the CIA, the FBI, the Pentagon and the State Department. *That's* why they distrust the Warren Commission, a joke of an investigation. That's why, try as this show might, it falls flat on its face trying to convince anyone with even a *shred* of knowledge that Oswald acted alone.

And the general population's knowledge of how the government and how mainstream media lie is not based on "theories," it's based on facts. ... Did Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon lie about Vietnam? ... Was Vietnam a threat to the United States? ... Was Nixon lying about Watergate? ... Did the CIA overthrow governments in Guatemala, Iran, Chile? ... Did Nixon, McCarthy, HUAC, et al lie about "The Red Menace"? ... Were there WMDs in Iraq? ... When the vote to go to war with Iraq came up in the Senate, did Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld *and* the mainstream of the Democratic Party lie about the threat posed by Iraq to the security of the United States?

Think maybe the same lies are being perpetrated as regards Iran?

But don't worry *that* question will never be explored by ABCNBCCBSCNNTIMENEWSWEEKTHENEWYORKTIMES.

This longstanding *history* of lying is not based on conspiracy theories or mere conjecture; in fact, quite the contrary.

It's always quite remarkable, breathtaking really, when one sees mainstream media in the United States gearing up to propagandize the American public. That Peter Jennings was able to host this show with a straight face is a tribute to his fealty to the power elite in general and his ruling elite neighbors/colleagues in particular --the ruling elite only getting upset at each other when really important issues are being debated, such as perhaps which yacht wax is the best to use.

For a documentary that's not only intellectually honest but that also puts the Kennedy assassination into the *CONTEXT* of what was going on at the time -- with the FBI, with the CIA, with the Cuban crazies, with the right-wing crazies, with the Mafia -- see "The Murder of JFK: A Revisionist History" - http://www.amazon.com/Murder-JFK-Revisionist-History/dp/B000BT96PK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1255789741&sr=8-2

By contrast, Peter Jennings' apparatchik piece of garbage treats the JFK assassination like a fairy tale -- wherein the good prince is suddenly and brazenly taken from us by the evil lone gunman. As if virtually nothing was going on politically besides that oft-told media-inspired fairy tale -- a fairy tale FPC ("for public consumption") long since dismissed by serious investigators into the JFK assassination.

As for Peter Jennings' integrity, why pick on the man? -- it's no different than that of his compatriots: Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, Katie Couric, Brian Williams. ... When Peter Jennings was alive, what do you think would have happened if he'd go to the bosses and say: "How about we do an investigative report on Disney. The way they treat their American workers, the fact that they run sweatshops in third world countries." ABC being owned by Disney, he would have been fired in a New York minute.

Not that the thought would ever cross Jennings' mind.

And what do you imagine would happen if Tom Brokaw of NBC got the bright, albeit democratically appropriate notion of doing a report on General Electric. It's sweetheart contracts with the Pentagon; the fact that General Electric consistently underpays what it should in corporate taxes, and that for three years running didn't pay *any* corporate taxes. ... Well, seeing that General Elelectic owns NBC no doubt the thought never closed Honest, Upright Tom's mind.

Think anyone over at CNN will say anything essentially or fundamentally negative about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, wars that are making Corporate America rich -- CNN owned and sponsored by the leading ranks of Corporate America.

No, Peter Jennings, like all bought-and-paid-for corporate mouthpieces, did his job and was amply rewarded.

That he did it via this "show" in so blatantly and outrageous a manner brings to mind what Hitler said in "Mein Kampf" about The Big Lie; namely, if the lie is big enoug and outrageous enough and is told often enough, that, so those in power hope, the lie will take root. ... Though I doubt in the case of this piece of nonsense that Jennings and ABC got away with it; albeit ABC et al are still at it, still trying to pour cement over the lies. \\***************

One of the reasons I love this smovie is to see how all the right-wing yuppies react to what they perceive as an unfair attack on their much-cherished suburbs.

How it's all a left-wing, socialist plot to undermine what's good and just and righteous and noble about their beloved ... front lawn.

You know, how it's guaranteed in the Constitution and by the revolutionaries back in 1776 that they should spend their lives yanking their weeds and pulling their crab grass.

(Ho-ho-ho-ho!)

Oh, how they so diligently defend their right to live lives of quiet desperation!

You know that expression about, say, a yacht -- you know, how they say: "If you have to ask how much it is, you can't afford it." Well, if you have to ask: "Why do people hate the suburbs? What don't they like about Pleasant Valley Sundays?" -- then, buddy, you'll never git it, comprende?

By the same token, if you have to ask what's wrong with "American values," then you're completely oblivious to what the ruling class in America -- by which I mean the American government, the media and Corporate America -- has done to millions of people not just in the United States but throughout the world.

Come on, you must have heard the news -- about the 50% of the world's population living on $2 a day or less, and the 20% of the world's population living on $1 a day or less. Numbers *far* worse than when Richard Yates wrote "Revolutionary Road" back in 1962. ...

And who, pray tell, do you think lives off the backs of all those exploited people? Who do you think lives off the backs of the poor here in the United States and around the world -- the poverty rate here in the United States being the highest rate of poverty of any other advanced industrial country, ***by far.***

BINGO! You got it! The economic elite! ... The top 1% of the American adult population -- owners of 45% of the nation's wealth -- followed by the next 19% of the American population -- owners of the next 45% of the nation's wealth. ... Numbers *far worse* than when Richard Yates wrote "Revolutionary Road" back in 1962.

It's not for nothing that the economic elite fervently pray to their pig-god Mammon, the pig-god who keeps them safe and warm, overfed and complacent, smugly obtuse and willfully ignorant.

The only thing is, though -- the masses are at the gates. Yes, they are. At the gates of your beloved suburbia. And, sad to say, you're not ready for any company today, are you? Still here they are, a-come a-knockin'.

The best scene in the movie was when the screwy guy, played by Richard Shannon, the one who is supposed to be nuts speaks truth to the power lawn mower, Leonardo di Caprio. Violates suburban etiquette by bringing a bayonet to the tea party.

But it would be a mistake to say that "Revolutionary Road" is simply "about the suburbs." It's, more generally, about the emptiness of "The American Dream." At least the American Dream as commonly defined.

What *is* "The American Dream," to most Americans? A big car. A big house. A big bank account. In short, a *private* dream, not a public dream.

The ancient Greeks believed that if all an individual is unconcerned about the common good and, instead, thinks only of the "id drives" -- the drive for food, shelter and clothing - then that person is, in effect, an id-iot," a private people. Indeed, this is the etymology of the word idiot, to be a *private* person.

So what Richard Yates concerns himself with in his book, and what the movie to, unfortunately, a lesser extent concerns itself with, is the lives of private, unconnected, id-iotic people.

The Wall Street Journal, the mother milk of the economic elite, ran a review of "Revolutionary Road" entitled "Why Does Hollywood Hate the Suburbs?" But "Revolutionary Road" is not simply about the suburbs. It's about the anomie, the rudderlessness of modern American life, no matter where it manifests itself. The suburbs are simply where more idiots hang out. (It's nothing personal, it's just sociology.)

To be an idiot is to be concerned only with the id drives -- food, shelter and clothing. Albeit for the economic elite the drive may be for *fancy* food ... and *fancy* shelter ... and *fancy* shelter -- nevertheless, the fact still remains that that's as far as their dreams and aspirations take them. They are private, disconnected, gated people.

Contrast this private definition of the American Dream with how the American Dream is interpreted by *other* Americans. Take, for example, the intellectual and spiritual force behind "Revolutionary Road," Henry David Thoreau, the author of the phrase "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation." ... Was his dream a private dream or a public dream? ...
What about people like Ralph Nader and Martin Luther King, Jr., Eugene Debs and Dorothea Day, Jeannette Rankin and Jane Addams -- did they dream private dreams or public dreams?

And is it a coincidence that their message, their dream, is less likely to gain acceptance in the suburbs than elsewhere?

These "day-dreamers" were not interested in big cars, fancy clothes or big houses (in the suburbs). Their dreams are *public* dreams, not private dreams. Equal rights. Economic justice. Workplace democracy. Not fancy housing for but rather decent housing for the many. Not fancy food for the spiritually and communally starved, for those with already-full pockets, but rather life-sustaining food for those without.

The thing is, up to the splitting of the atom their dreams were just that dreams, but now they can be accomplished, now they can come to pass. We as a species now have the resources and technological know-how to fed, shelter and clothe every man, woman and child on the face of the earth. And the only thing that's preventing that from happening is collective will to do so.

But what is the "collective will" of private dreamers? It's a question that, in and of itself, makes no sense. Private dreamers *have* no collective will. They are fragmented, atomized, disconnected, community-less consumer-ciphers.

Just for the fun of it, try putting the dreams of public dream next to the Pleasant Valley Sunday dreams of "Mister Green, who's so serene he has a teevee in every room."

Hardly a contest, is it?

This is what's at the heart of "Revolutionary Road" (more so the book than the movie) -- this idea of not just spiritual emptiness but where does the spiritual emptiness come from? It comes from a profound sense of guilt; a profound sense of guilt rooted in the separateness and disconnectedness so many Americans voluntarily choose as a way of life. No one put a gun to April and Frank Wheeler to go live in the suburbs, the bastion of private dreams. They pulled the plug on their connectedness to the real world voluntarily. ... And they wonder why, like millions of other disconnected Americans, they're so unhappy.

Millions of people in the United States are living in denial -- denial of how the American Empire is affecting millions of people not just in the US but around the world. To maintain this state of denial they need diversions -- bread and circuses - with a move to the suburbs being the perfect way to wall themselves against what's "outside over there."

And if a move to the suburbs is not economically possible, as it was for the Wheelers', then, well, they can dream (privately) can't they?

So "Revolutionary Road" is not just "about the suburbs; it's not just about people who actually move to the suburbs; it's about all those people who *dream* about moving to the suburbs: those who make it and those who wish they could make it.

You can't have a society that lives off the blood, sweat and tears of millions of people without a profound sense guilt rooted in separateness -- separateness from the human community. To paraphrase Joe Louis: "They can run to the suburbs but they can't hide from reality."

And no amount of *diversions," no amount of bread and circuses, no amount of "reality shows" can blot out the reality of what domination of the poor by the rich does to the human spirit individually and the culture's soul collectively.

Given such a reality, anomie, rudderlessness, spiritual and emotional emptiness are all inevitable consequences.

How do the people in "Revolutionary Road" connect to each other? Answer: In the most superficial, insincere, dishonest way imaginable. Their personal and social unions are not unions at all, they're pseudo-unions.

Interestingly enough, what happened in the United States shortly after "Revolutionary Road" was published in 1962 was that what was not to be thought of, what was to be ignored, marginalized and rationalized away -- Reality at the Gates -- what those who fled to the suburbs wanted desperately to "not think about" -- suddenly in the 60's and 70's DEMANDED to be heard.

Since then, the voices that demanded to be heard have yet to be understood, have yet to be fully acknowledged by the majority of Americans; in particular, America's ruling class: the politicians, the media and the corporatists; in short, America's economic elite. Many but all of whom reside in the suburbs.

You can't have the ruling elite of the United States systematically exploit millions of people throughout the world -- and in its own country as well! --and expect those same people to sleep soundly at night. It doesn't work that way.

Some have criticized Richard Yates' novel for being overly pessimistic. And it's there that I have a fundamental disagreement with him and with the movie. As a great man once said: "Pessimism is a function of inactivity." So, no, one must not become negative or cynical or pessimistic. Still, it's hard to resist the question: Did the American mainstream in fact *learn* anything from 1962 to the present-day?

Did they learn anything from the civil rights movement?

Did they learn from the Vietnam War?

Did they learn anything from the lies of Watergate?

Did they learn anything from the three rapes of Iraq -- Gulf War I, the economic sanctions and Gulf War II?

This is what Richard Yates and novelists like him are writing about. And this is what's lacking in the *movie* version of his novel - the movie doesn't get to the core-value issues of *why* the suburbs are an American wasteland; and what they represent in terms of the larger issues, i.e., the fundamental, first-order questions so many in the middle class and the upper middle class desperately avoid asking.

Perhaps if the movie was made at a different moment in history, within the context of a different movie-making economic structure.

Meanwhile the chickens, inevitably, come home to roost. And, ready or not, here they are.


1/5 Biggest Gagger of all times, can you say give the girl happy pills
  by E. C. Rowe (Illinois, USA)
This movie is about the stupidest flick we ever saw. My mother in law, my wife and I all watched this gagger and honestly could not figure out why we did not turn it off after 10 minutes.

Life sucks, then you get married, have kids and it turns to hell, we get it! We don't need two hours of fighting and unhappiness to prove what we already know. Life is challenging and you have to enjoy the good things when you can. In this movie there is no good things to enjoy, only misery and fighting.

The movie features a nutjob who understand the wives desire to move to Paris France and chuck, all reality and responsibility. The wife in this flick seriously needs prozac or some other mood altering drug. She is unstable and in need of psychiatric help at best. She want to get a secretaries job for a government firm in Paris which makes good money supposedly and allow her husband to be a stay at home bum so he can discover what he wants to do with his life. Mind you, she does not have a job offer, she just knows of these jobs and wants to chuck everything to go there and try to get one. There is no planning or realistic pursuit of this aspiration. Can you say serious loss of reality? When she does not get her way and get to chuck life and move to Paris, she gives herself a home abortion because she is pregnant with a kid neither her or her husband wants and commits suicide. Both the husband and wife have affairs, his is a long time deal with a girl at work, hers is a one time thing(we think, not really sure, they make it seem like this may be something that has happened before?), with next door neighbors husband who says he loves her.

This whole movie is confusing pointless and another Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet flop as far as I am concerned. I hated Titanic! I do not like Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, and have never seen a movie by either of them that I have enjoyed. My wife on the other hand liked Titanic, but agrees with me that this movie was a serious waste of time!

I would recommend you stay as far away from this rotten movie as possible, obviously there are a few people that liked this movie, how or why I just cannot understand?

3/5 The 'Road' Not Taken
  by J. Sherman (New York, USA)
Director Sam Mendes reunites wife Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio ("Titanic") for the film adaptation of Richard Yates' groundbreaking novel. Leo and Kate star as Frank and April Wheeler, a young couple struggling to make life in 1950s suburbia, and a soulcrushing marriage, work. When you get pass the marital spats, the performance of the cast is what Frank's boss would call a "crackerjack." This includes Kathy Bates (another "Titanic" co-star) as a busybody neighbor and Michael Shannon as her mentally unhinged son. However, though the script follows the book like holy writ, so much backstory was left out that you only get the gist of what all the fuss is about. As a result, the viewer sees almost no reason to commit to the characters. Though it's doubtful that the film's delected scenes would have amounted to much, at least they would have provided much-needed character insight. It's just another case of what happens when you try squeezing several hundred pages into two hours of film.

This film is rated R: Violence, Brief Nudity, Adult Language, Adult Situations, Strong Sexual Content.