Oscar snub for Sam Mendes’s Revolutionary Road

Although Kate Winslet will have been delighted to receive a best actress Oscar nomination for her role in The Reader, it’s not all joy and happiness in the Winslet household. Revolutionary Road, in which she also stars, and for which she received a Golden Globe last week, was overlooked in the main categories - a snub not just to her but also to her husband, Sam Mendes (pictured with Winslet), who directed the film.

Despite some good early reviews, and the cult status of the 1961 Richard Yates novel on which it is based, the film, which follows the travails of a married couple living in suburban America in the 1950s and reunites Winslet with her Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio, has not won everyone round, neither in Hollywood nor London it seems.

Writing in the Times, Wendy Ide, said that it was a "disappointing downer of a film". She blamed the “overwritten” dialogue. “mannered and theatrical" performances and found the direction by Mendes, who won an Oscar for American Beauty in 2000, flawed.

That said, Winslet has been nominated for a Bafta for Revolutionary Road, as well as her performance in The Reader. Although she has not had much luck in the past at the Academy Awards - she has been nominated six time before - she is emerging as the bookies’ favourite this time round, with Anne Hathaway also looking good for Rachel Getting Married.