Revolutionary Road/Kite Runner/Babel New DVD

Triple bill of intense feature dramas.

'Revolutionary Road' (2008) stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as April and Frank Wheeler, an attractive and seemingly successful young couple living in a Connecticut suburb during the mid-1950s. However, neither April nor Frank feels fulfilled by the trivial routines and limitations of suburban life, and cracks begin to appear in their relationship. As the pair begin to hatch far-fetched plans to spice up their lives, will their mutual disappointments draw them together or force them apart?

'Babel' (2006) is a multi-narrative drama set in Morocco, Mexico and Tokyo. A young American couple, Richard (Brad Pitt) and Susan (Cate Blanchett), go to Morocco on holiday to try to mend the cracks in their relationship, but are catapulted into disaster when a rogue gunshot fired by a Moroccan farmer's son brings Susan to the brink of death. Meanwhile, the couple's children have been left at home in San Diego in the care of their housekeeper, Amelia (Adriana Barraza). Since she cannot find anyone to mind them while she attends her son's wedding across in Mexico, Amelia decides to take the kids with her. In the third storyline, set in Tokyo, a teenage deaf-mute rebel, Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi), is left reeling after the apparent suicide of her mother. Her attention-seeking behaviour makes her increasingly vulnerable, but can she attract the attention of the person she feels most isolated from?

In 'The Kite Runner' (2007) childhood friends Amir (Zekeriah Ebrahimi) and Hassan (Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada) spend their days on the streets of Kabul getting up to mischief and eagerly awaiting the spectacular kite-fighting contests of the city. But the joyous excitement of one such occasion is ruined by a shocking act that changes the two boys' relationship forever. Amir leaves soon after to live in America, just as the threat of war becomes a grim reality. 20 years later, still haunted by the past, Amir (played as an adult by Khalid Abdalla) returns to Afghanistan, now in the grip of the Taliban, determined to finally redeem himself.