Revolutionary Road opens its story just after the conclusion of a disastrous community theatre production of The Petrified Forest where, on a small, suburban public school stage, April Wheeler (Kate Winslet) has suffered more than just humiliation, her self image as a unique individual with a special place in the world has been destroyed. Her husband, Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio), obviously tired of April’s latest attempt at self-actualization, isn’t exactly sympathetic. The argument that follows is bitter, the film that follows is probably worse than that play.
What say we don’t argue over whether or not the suburbs, especially the suburbs of the 1950s, are killers of the human spirit. To each their own, right? But does anyone really want to defend that portraying the...