Revolutionary Road 2008

Ben Mankiewicz, At the Movies: Give me something to care about. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Revolutionary Road, a waxworks edition of the furiously unsentimental novel by Richard Yates, tracks the unraveling of a handsome young suburban couple in the 1950s. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: The self-dramatization is harder to capture, sometimes coming off as false moments between the actors, yet this is still a troubling story of two good people who can't live with the truth that they're as ordinary as their neighbors. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: The pompous direction was inflicted by Sam Mendes, who seems to regard the 1950s as a foreign country. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: A heartbreakingly sad yet remarkable film from director Sam Mendes. Read more

Jonathan F. Richards, Film.com: If Revolutionary Road had been filmed back in 1961, when the novel came out, it would have been timely and powerful. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: It's keenly observed, handsomely mounted, supremely well-acted, and distant in a way the period trappings can't quite explain away. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Unlike the novel, which you can set aside and take a break, with the film version of Revolutionary Road, you're in for the duration, and it's ultimately too much to take. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Winslet gives a fearless performance here. It's not her fault her husband has shrouded it in Taste. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Strong performances steer this 1950s marital drama out of a period-picture trap. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Sam Mendes, the director of Revolutionary Road, injects a few milligrams of hope into his film version of the 1961 Richard Yates novel, an excoriating portrait of a mid-1950s marriage built on sticks, straw and delusion. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: Viewers in the mood for rip-snorting marital combat should go ahead and partake, but they must prepare to leave the theatre in a state of profound depression. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: What is it about the 1950s that brings out the worst in cultural historians? Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Like its cinematic kin, Frost/Nixon and Doubt, this, too, is a delicately crafted, prestige project whose translation to screen doesn't deliver the original's amazements. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Bitter, nerve-wracking, ugly and relentless, Revolutionary Road is Big Drama done right, a mesmerizing look at desperate lives, wrong moves and spoiled dreams that hits hard right from the beginning and never lets up. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The best thing about Revolutionary Road... is that it doesn't end with that rote vision of bourgeois anomie. It only begins there. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: Since Mendes has kept us emotionally at arm's length with his structured, hermetically sealed production, it's hard to care about whether they'll ever find that elusive something. Read more

Amy Nicholson, I.E. Weekly: Like Columbus, British filmmaker Sam Mendes insists he's discovered America. Read more

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: A film that, by the end, turns into a far more unsettling haunted-house story than The Amityville Horror. Read more

David Ansen, Newsweek: Revolutionary Road is impressive, but it feels like a classic encased in amber. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: It is honorably and brutally unnerving. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: The crossed-signals and secret selfishness of a bad marriage are the sour heart of Revolutionary Road. And it is devastating. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: Buy the house in the suburbs, go to work, take out the garbage, have an affair — slowly these two mortgage their dreams. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: In pieces and in spirit, the many honest parts of this drama about marital life in the 1950s are like the rooms of a house that feel right, even if the exterior slopes somewhat clumsily. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: It simply doesn't play as well as it reads. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: A flawless, moment-to-moment autopsy of a marriage on the rocks and an indictment of the American Dream gone sour. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Mendes has made a troubling film that wrestles with big themes and touchy subjects, even if it is set in an overly familiar milieu. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: [A] devastating if flawed adaptation of the Richard Yates novel. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Revolutionary Road/i> is dramatically potent material and, although it poses a number of philosophical questions, it works best as an unsentimental examination of a marriage in crisis. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: Bolstered by Thomas Newman's score, spot-on set design and the brilliant source material, "Revolutionary Road" is a darkly effective portrait of an Eisenhower-era couple who fall tragically short of reaching Camelot. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: This film is so good it is devastating. A lot of people believe their parents didn't understand them. What if they didn't understand themselves? Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Revolutionary Road gets my vote as the best American film of 2008. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Why does the movie feel as pleasantly deadening as the midcentury Connecticut suburb where it takes place? Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Revolutionary Road is easily the best-acted film of 2008, and one of the most corrosive. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Sam Mendes has worked in this territory before with his Oscar-winning American Beauty. Revolutionary Road is a better movie because it doesn't rely on such blatant caricatures. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Somehow the film fails to inspire more than admiration, never reaching the same heights of empathy achieved by less impeccable treatments of the same topic. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: This is a sobering, well-observed film that doesn't fully hit the mark but sets up enough pleasing ideas to chew on regarding ambition, marriage and ideals of how to live one's life, individually and as a couple. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: Revolutionary Road is a very good bigscreen adaptation of an outstanding American novel -- faithful, intelligent, admirably acted, superbly shot. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Sam Mendes's spiritually depleted film exerts an undeniable pull as its beautiful, doomed protagonists navigate the ennui of adult life. Revolutionary Road provides an apt bookend to a holiday season drenched in fatalistic gloom. Read more