Movie review: "Revolutionary Road" (2008)

The gist: Early on in this two-hour flick, when Frank and April Wheeler (Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet) stop their car to have a ripsnorter of an argument that verges on assault, it's apparent they're not the model of marital bliss their neighbours in 1950s suburban Connecticut believe. Both dream of escaping to a foreign land free from social expectations, but as a pretty young coworker and the opportunity for advancement begin to make his job bearable, she feels increasingly trapped in her roles as housewife and mother. Slowly, irreparably, Frank and April tear each other apart.

Selling points: Memorable turns from Kathy Bates as the Wheelers' fuddy-duddy real estate agent, obsessed with the idea of the perfect couple, and from Michael Shannon as her adult son, once mathematically brilliant but now a shock-therapy casualty cursed to speak the truth like some Shakespearean fool.

It's kinda like: Director Sam Mendes' own "American Beauty" (1999) or indeed any film about the "hopeless emptiness" of the suburbs. Though set a decade prior to cable series "Mad Men" (2007-), it recreates the in-office smoking, clinking cocktail glasses, snappy dressing and cheerful sexism with similar aplomb.

Final word: Don't judge a marriage by its real estate.

[Australian cinema release date: January 22]