Great Writing: Peter Bradshaw

Loved The Bradshaw's review of Revolutionary Road. This, today, at 10.30am, feels like truly great writing.

Frank and April's summer of dashed hope and ruined plans is excruciating not merely because it forces them to admit an existential defeat, but because it shows them a happiness they would never have known, had they never thought of leaving, and also, crucially, a happiness they would never have had in Paris: a happiness of pure, innocent, happy anticipation. Frank and April's dreams were not simply a Chekhovian yearning for Moscow: the plan was not entirely beyond the bounds of possibility, and the likelihood that their marriage would have been just as unhappy in Paris paradoxically reinforces the agonising plausibility of the dream.

Really want to see the film, and read the book now.