Revolutionary Road is a 2008 romantic drama film directed by Sam Mendes and written by Justin Haythe, based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Richard Yates.

It stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as Frank and April Wheeler, with Michael Shannon, Kathryn Hahn, David Harbour, and Kathy Bates in supporting roles.

The film grossed over $79.6 million worldwide and received positive reviews from critics, who mostly praised the performances of Winslet, DiCaprio, and Shannon, as well as its faithfulness to the novel.

At the 81st Academy Awards, the film earned three nominations: Best Supporting Actor for Shannon, Best Art Direction, and Best Costume Design.

Wanting to escape their suburban existence and a chance to support the family so Frank can find his passion, April suggests starting a new life in Paris, France.

When Frank discovers she is contemplating having an abortion, the couple have an altercation; April claims they had their second child only to prove the first was not a "mistake".

[4] Samuel Goldwyn Jr. expressed an interest in the film adaptation, but others in his studio told him that it lacked commercial prospects.

[5] Then in 1965, producer Albert S. Ruddy bought the rights but disliked the ending to the novel, and wanted to obscure April's death with "tricky camerawork".

Haythe's first draft was very faithful to the novel, using large parts of Yates' own language, but Mendes told him to find ways to externalize what Frank and April do not say to each other.

[5] DiCaprio was intrigued by the 1950s era and complexities of marriage; "The dynamic between Frank and April is so powerful and realistic, you feel like you're a fly on the wall watching an intimate relationship disintegrate," he said.

[12] On April 24, 2007, it was announced that Kathy Bates had joined the cast, along with David Harbour, Michael Shannon and Zoe Kazan.

[13] Kazan said she fought hard for the role of Maureen Grube, despite objections from casting director Debra Zane who thought she was too young.

[18] Mendes wanted to create a claustrophobic dynamic on set, so he filmed the Wheeler home interiors in a real house.

[20] Cinematographer Roger Deakins, who previously worked on Mendes' Jarhead, shot with a combination of jib and handheld camera equipment.

[11][21] To gradually illustrate the home's neglect and Wheelers' collapsing marriage, the crew removed props in the house and Deakins transitioned to handheld cameras, respectively.

[22] Recalling the on-set atmosphere, Michael Shannon said that he did not feel that there were any "stars", but "a group of people united by a passion for the material and wanting to honor the book".

[5] Thomas Newman composed the soundtrack for Revolutionary Road; it is his fourth film score collaboration with Mendes.

[28] 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.

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.

[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".

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.

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.

[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.

[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.

[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".