'Burb Angst

On "Revolutionary Road" (2008, dir. Sam Mendes):
Disappointing in its totality, but with admirable parts. Liked Roger Deakins’ coolly detached and clinical cinematography. Kate Winslet deserves her Globe for an astutely calibrated performance. She makes you feel what she’s going through, while Leonardo DiCaprio only manages to show you. Kathy Bates and Michael Shannon as mother and son make their mark in fewer scenes than it takes Sam Mendes to show us that suburbia numbs and crushes your soul.

Starting out on a shrill pitch (with a roadside spat) only leads us to more of the same. Each time Thomas Newman’s music comes on, a sledgehammer might as well have played that score. ("Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" starts out in the same pitch but takes us to further and varied grotesqueries).

5 Suburban Dramas Superior to "Revolutionary Road":

1. "Little Children" (2006, dir. Todd Field) Kate Winslet trapped in suburbia and in a hotter sex scene.
2. "American Beauty" (1999, dir. Sam Mendes) Mendes did it before and better.
3. "Happiness" (1998, dir. Todd Solondz) Dark and brutally funny.
4. "The Ice Storm" (1997, dir. Ang Lee) So chilly it will frost your screen.
5. "Bigger than Life" (1956, Nicholas Ray) Let’s shake up conformity with a little cortisol.