Director
Sam Mendes
Leading Actors/Actresses
Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet
Supporting Actors/Actresses
Kathy Bates, Michael Shannon
Genre
Romantic Drama
Language
English
Awards
Golden Globe Award, Best Actress: Kate Winslet
Date of Release
December 15, 2008
Producer
Bobby Cohen, Sam Mendes, Scott Rudin, John Hart
Setting and Context
Revolutionary Road, suburban Connecticut, during the late 1940s and 1950s
Narrator and Point of View
The point of view is that of both Frank and April Wheeler; it is almost a third-person point of view because we as the audience are deciding whose point of view we want to take during the film.
Tone and Mood
At first both tone and mood are upbeat and optimistic. Later, the tone becomes abusive and threatening and the mood turns far darker.
Protagonist and Antagonist
April is the protagonist; Frank is the antagonist.
Major Conflict
There is huge conflict between the Wheelers about April's pregnancy. She wants to move to Paris and start a new life but Frank wants to stay in Connecticut and expand their family. There is conflict about the pregnancy because April doesn't want another child.
Climax
April dies as a result of blood loss after performing a vacuum aspiration abortion on herself.
Foreshadowing
The fact that April has told Frank time and time again that she does not want any more children foreshadows her trying to abort the pregnancy herself.
Understatement
The marriage is termed "troubled" by their friends, but this is an understatement because the couple fight all the time about the direction they each want their lives to take. They fight about having more children and eventually Frank has an affair and April falls out of love with him altogether.
Innovations in Filming or Lighting or Camera Techniques
Mendes wanted the audience to share the same feelings of claustrophobia that April is experiencing and also to feel unable to escape in the same way that she does. To achieve this, he films the scenes set in the couple's home in a real-life house, not on a set, which makes everything seem like it is in extremely close quarters.
Allusions
N/A
Paradox
Frank is worried that April will be furious with him when she learns of his affair, but she has already fallen out of love with him and does not therefore have the emotional capacity to feel anger over the affair, or to care enough about it to be angry.
Parallelism
There is a parallel between the loss of both Frank and April's dreams and the decline of their marriage.
