Revolutionary Road

The problem with Revolutionary Road for anyone who has actually read Richard Yates's 1961 novel is the fundamental miscasting of its leads.

Kate Winslet as the brittle, waspish April Wheeler trapped in domesticity and American suburbia is too British, too rounded and mousey; Leonardo DiCaprio is altogether too boyish, too insubstantial to play the vain, chisel-jawed Frank, a man who, scared by the ambition of his wife and unsettled by how mundane his life has become, screws his secretary and spends a lot of time pep-talking himself in the mirror.

So while one admires Sam Mendes's handling of this most devastating tale, one can't help but feel the story deserved better. It's impressive of course, in a plushly furnished period piece way; there is no hair out of place.

But what Mendes cannot manage is the the bravery of Yates's novel, he cannot quite let himself manifest the unflinching loathing that occurs inside the minds of Frank and April Wheeler's heads, and so we are left with something cosier, comelier, a more digestible version of the original.