I saw the "Revolutionary Road" movie last night. The acting was quite good. That much intense emotionality between two people who were on screen in almost every scene would be challenging to pull off and I thought that DiCaprio and Winslett did an excellent job. What bothered me about the cinematic version was that April Wheeler came off as looking a bit emotionally unstable. This was not due to the acting of Winslett, she was playing the book, it could be attributed more to the scenes that were omitted from the movie. In the book the reader knows what April Wheeler is grappling with, she is having difficulty embracing her role a as a stay-at-home mom in a time period which dictates that this is pretty much the only option for a married woman with children. In the movie she goes from angry to sweet housewife quickly, leaving too much I think to viewer interpretation.
The lighting and period staging (it was, as it should have been, so 1950's) was quite good. Some people find this story depressing. I find it interesting from a historical perspective. How much of this "history" are we still debating? Some scenes of the movie were also filmed quite differently from how they were written in the book (this is always the case) and in this movie it would be obvious "why." So much is hard to watch. The whole relationship between these two people is hard to watch (it was hard to read about). I never say this, but I think that this movie might have been better if it were a bit longer. Of course, they probably would lose more viewers because longer would mean adding more emotionally thoughtful content that probably had to be cut in order to make people want to see the movie. My recommendation, read the book first, then you can fill in the blanks that the movie brings.
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