NY1.com

  55º F

05/30/2009 05:45 PM

EW DVD Review: "Revolution Road"

By: Chris Nashawaty - Entertainment Weekly

  To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

A decade after they first appeared onscreen together in "Titanic," the biggest box office hit in movie history, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet finally reunited last year in "Revolutionary Road," a great, depressing drama based on a beloved 1961 novel by Richard Yates.

More or less snubbed at last year's Oscars, where Winslet's much less subtle performance in "The Reader" won her a Best Actress statuette, "Revolutionary Road" is the antidote for people who complain about Hollywood's lack of interest in making movies for grownups.

DiCaprio and Winslet play a newlywed couple in the late 1950s named Frank and April Wheeler. They move out to suburban Connecticut to begin their promising lives.

But soon, Frank's trapped in a soul-sucking job, commuting to Manhattan with all of the other suburban schmoes, and April's grappling with a life she never really wanted - namely, being a mom, making small talk with chipper folks like Kathy Bates' real estate agent, and acting not very well in local theater productions.

Anyone who's ever read a dark-heart-of-suburbia short story by John Cheever knows what happens next. They bicker and barb at each other about how conventional their lives have become, lashing out when they really are mad at themselves for settling into the rut they're in.

Directed by Sam Mendes, the director of "American Beauty," which tackled the same sort of shady lane rage but less effectively, and who also happens to be the husband of Winslet offscreen, "Revolutionary Road" is a haunting, beautiful, amazingly acted film that's uncomfortable viewing, but ultimately deeply rewarding in the end.

Is it a downer? Yeah, and then some. But it's also about something besides explosions and mutant superpowers, which makes it something very rare these days.

Now for a look at what else is new on DVD: in "Woodstock," the groundbreaking rock documentary gets a lavish 40th anniversary set; in "Gran Torino," Clint Eastwood plays a crotchety retiree who stands up for his neighbors; and in "The International," Clive Owen tries to take down a crooked, arms-dealing bank.