Big ups to Roommate Joe for taking me to see an advanced screening of Revolutionary Road! It was a great birthday present, and now I get to weigh in early on this inevitable Oscar nominee. (It doesn’t open until December 26.)

I guess I’m fine with the awards attention. Since it’s directed by Sam Mendes and stars Kate Winslet, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Kathy Bates (who’s also part of the Titanic reunion, I might add), the movie is predictably impressive.

In fact, Winslet even surpassed my lofty expectations for her performance as April Wheeler, a rebellious, 1950s Connecticut housewife who’s being choked by domesticity. One of the best moments of Winslet’s career comes when April decides to fake suburban bliss after an evening spent fighting with her husbasnd Frank (DiCaprio.)  Her speaking voice changes, dropping to a low rasp as she asks Frank how he wants his eggs, and there’s robotic elegance in the way she reaches for a napkin, like she’s performing the cover of Good Housekeeping.

But you can see what’s roiling beneath her skin. You can feel her suppressing everything she is–an artist, a free thinker–just from the squint of her eyes.  Her act is even more powerful because April is a failed actress. Here she is in her kitchen giving the performance of her life, and not even her self-deluded husband is noticing.

DiCaprio holds his own, particularly in an earlier fight where he gets so wounded by April’s coldness that he starts screaming and crying and smashing things. He seems so broken that I wanted to hive him a hug.

However, even as I describe what I love about those performances, I’m reminded why the move frustrates me. Ultimately, it’s clanging the same angry bell as a thousand other “suburban exposés.”

I’ll dig through the plot after the jump. (MILD SPOILERS)

According to Revolutionary Road, true happiness comes from having the courage to live the life you want, even if it means abandoning your comfortable surroundings and making your friends and neighbors think you’re crazy.

Starting with an early shot of anonymous business men in matching suits spilling over the stairs of Grand Central Station, it’s clear that nobody should want the Wheelers’ life. The colors are cold, the clothes are starchy, and the homes are lifeless. This is the chilly suburbia we’ve encountered everywhere from The Hours and Far From Heaven to J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories.

The familiar path would be okay if it led us somewhere unexpected, like when Far From Heaven turns into a stylized explosion of repressed sexual energy.

At first, the movie dangles promises. There’s a stretch of woods across from the Wheelers’ house, and every time they walk through it, it’s impossibly green. Inside this little paradise, they clearly articulate their loathing for suburbia, and when April needs to escape her worst fight with Frank, she runs to the woods. They’re like a sliver of wild energy, teasing her with what’s beyond Revolutionary Road.

They’re also the physical manifestation of the couple’s plan to move to Paris. In Paris–or the dream of Paris–they can free their minds and souls… they can bloom up like the woods on their otherwise muted block.

But here’s where the film takes a turn for the predictable: The patch of grass and the dream of France are just lies. No one escapes. Ulitmately, people in this world have two options: They can either try and fail for to be happy, or they can deceive themselves until they’re numb.

But come on. How cynical can you get? There are happy people in the suburbs who live engaged, productive, and even imaginative lives, just like there are couples who feel they sold out because they moved behind a picket fence. By trying to pretend that only the latter people exist, the film loses authenticity.

And I’m not saying artists should avoid sad stories. But this film passes cheap judgment on an entire way of life. It’s so relentlessly dour that it becomes a bogus preacher, inisting darkness is the only thing to see.

Note: I haven’t read Richard Yates’ original novel, so this review only takes my experience of the film into account.