Stars:
*** 1/2
Rating: R for language
and nudity
Run
Time: 1
hour, 59 minutes
Kate and
Leo may be the Bogie and Bacall of their generation and their second shared effort
(following “Titanic”) positively oozes quality chemistry.
Not the
kind of chemistry that makes for happy endings. Winslet and DiCaprio are
literally at each other’s throats as April and Frank Wheeler, the classic 1950s
golden couple who suddenly find the luster lost from their white picket fence
union.
Through a
series of deft flashbacks director Sam Mendes builds a case for suburban ennui,
a stifling boredom compounded by two kids and dead end jobs. No honeymoon
period in this examination of domestic gloom; a sometimes quiet sometimes
rageful unraveling of dignity, pride and shallow sense of self.
Mendes
focuses on the subtleties; the 50s landscape in shades of grey and beige with
no spark of color to augment joy. When the couple attempt to get “the special
back” by pitching it all and moving to Paris the futility of the plan is
positively painful.
Kate and
Leo bounce off one another like blazing comets, all heat and light and
friction. Smaller roles lend dramatic clout; Kathy Bates as a busybody realtor,
Michael Shannon as her schizophrenic mathematician son (Oscar!) and Dylan Baker
as Frank’s jealous, washed-up co-worker who knows his time has passed.
Scripting,
much from Richard Yates’ 1961 novel of the same name, is spot on, everyone
bleeding dissatisfaction and expressing such with a hopeless emptiness that
hurts.
The
build-up gains slow momentum but once “Road” finds its rhythm it’s positively
devastating.