Box office
Revolutionary Road premiered in Los Angeles on December 15, 2008, followed by a limited U.S. release on December 26, 2008, and then a wider release (1,058 theaters) on January 23, 2009. In most other countries, it was released between January 15–30, 2009.[26] The film earned $22.9 million at the domestic box office and $56.6 million internationally for a moderate worldwide $76 million.[3]
Home media
Revolutionary Road was released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 2, 2009.[27] The Blu-ray edition includes an audio commentary by Mendes, 26-minutes of deleted scenes, and two documentaries on the development of the project.[28]
Critical reception
It takes the skill of stars Winslet and DiCaprio and director Mendes to get this film to a place where it involves and moves us ... Justin Haythe's screenplay does many good things, but it can't escape the arch lingo of the time ... his [Mendes] gift for eliciting naturalness, the core of this film finally cries out to us today, makes us see that the notion of characters struggling with life, with the despair of betraying their best selves because of what society will or won't allow, is as gripping and relevant now as it ever was. Or ever will be.[29]
—Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times
Revolutionary Road received generally positive reviews from critics. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 67% based on 215 reviews, with an average score of 6.60/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Brilliantly acted and emotionally powerful, Revolutionary Road is a handsome adaptation of Richard Yates' celebrated novel".[30] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 69 out of 100, based on 38 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[31]
Rex Reed of The New York Observer gave the film a positive response; "a flawless, moment-to-moment autopsy of a marriage on the rocks and an indictment of the American Dream gone sour" and "a profound, intelligent and deeply heartfelt work that raises the bar of filmmaking to exhilarating".[32] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called the film "raw and riveting" and commented, "Directed with extraordinary skill by Sam Mendes, who warms the chill in the Yates-faithful script by Justin Haythe, the film is a tough road well worth traveling ... DiCaprio is in peak form, bringing layers of buried emotion to a defeated man. And the glorious Winslet defines what makes an actress great, blazing commitment to a character and the range to make every nuance felt".[33] Writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle said, "Finally, this is a movie that can and should be seen more than once. Watch it one time through her eyes. Watch it again through his eyes. It works both ways. It works in every way. This is a great American film".[34]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave Revolutionary Road a maximum rating of four stars, commending the acting and screenplay and calling the film "so good it is devastating". Of DiCaprio and Winslet, he said, "they are so good, they stop being actors and become the people I grew up around".[35] Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman graded the film B+ and commented, "The film is lavishly dark—some might say too dark—yet I'd suggest it has a different limitation: For all its shattering domestic discord, there's something remote and aestheticized about it. April brings a private well of conflict to her middle-class prison, but Winslet is so meticulous in her telegraphed despair that she intrigues us, moves us, yet never quite touches our unguarded nerves".[36] Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News said:
[the film] comes close but falls short of capturing Richard Yates' terrific novel... the movie—two-thirds Mad Men, one-third American Beauty, with a John Cheever chaser—works best when focusing on the personal. Thankfully, it's there that Mendes and screenwriter Justin Haythe catch some of Yates' weighty ideas, and where Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet succeed in doing the heavy lifting... DiCaprio, round-shouldered and sleepy-eyed, and Winslet, watchful and alert, raise up each other and everything around them. Never once shadowed by Titanic, they suggest, often wordlessly, the box the Wheelers have found themselves in. Whereas the novel is told mostly from Frank's viewpoint, the movie is just as much April's, and Winslet, whether fighting back or fighting back tears, is sensational.[37]
Some film critics gave a mixed response. David Ansen of Newsweek opined that it is "impeccably mounted—perhaps too much so. Mendes [...] has an innately theatrical style: everything pops off the screen a little bigger and bolder than life [...] Instead of losing myself in the story, I often felt on the outside looking in, appreciating the craftsmanship, but one step removed from the agony on display. Revolutionary Road is impressive, but it feels like a classic encased in amber".[38] Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter described the film as a "didactic, emotionally overblown critique of the soulless suburbs", and thought it was a repeat of American Beauty. He wrote, "Once more, the suburbs are well-upholstered nightmares and its denizens clueless—other than one estranged male. Everything is boldly indicated to the audience from arch acting styles to the wink-wink, nod-nod of its design. Indeed his actors play the subtext with such fury that the text virtually disappears. Subtlety is not one of Mendes' strong suits".[39]
Writing for Variety magazine, Todd McCarthy thought the film was "faithful, intelligent, admirably acted, superbly shot". He added, "It also offers a near-perfect case study of the ways in which film is incapable of capturing certain crucial literary qualities, in this case the very things that elevate the book from being a merely insightful study of a deteriorating marriage into a remarkable one [...] Even when the dramatic temperature is cranked up too high, the picture's underpinnings seem only partly present, to the point where one suspects that what it's reaching for dramatically might be all but unattainable—perhaps approachable only by Pinter at his peak."[40] McCarthy later changed his opinion, calling Revolutionary Road "problematic" and that it "has some issues that just won't go away".[41] He concludes that Revolutionary Road suffers in comparison to Billy Wilder's The Apartment and Richard Quine's Strangers When We Meet because of its "narrow vision", even arguing that the television series Mad Men handles the issues of conformity, frustration, and hypocrisy "with more panache and precision".[41]
Top ten lists
The film appeared on several critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008.
- 1st – Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle[34]
- 2nd – Rex Reed, New York Observer[42]
- 6th – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone[43]
- 8th – James Berardinelli, ReelViews[44]
- 9th – David Denby, The New Yorker[45]
- No order – Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News[46]
- No order – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (alphabetical top 20 list)[47]
