How could we have lived like that, and so recently? Now we all wear T-shirts and jeans, and in comparison we look awful.

You make a big point of commuters, men in hats.

I know. I wanted to make them look like salmon swimming upstream.

But although it’s a period piece, the theme of the film feels modern.

I believe it is. There’s a longing at the heart of the book, and I hope at the heart of the movie -- the feeling that all these characters are longing for something. They just don’t know what it is.

April tries to put a word to it. Her longing is represented by Paris. But Paris is a metaphor. We all have our Paris, our escape, our Eden. There’s a point in your life you think everything is available to you.

And that’s what she’s trying to get back to. But in any era, it’s difficult to wake up in your 30s and realise you’re not living the life you want. If your life is underpinned by disappointment, how do you rid yourself of it? For me, that’s what makes it a universal story.

I think people now often have discussions about how you balance your life, having kids and a job. If you studied the amount of time you spent talking with your partner about a variety of topics, that would be pretty close to the top of the list. So it’s incredibly current.

Where did you shoot?

In Darien, Connecticut. It was all on location: we wanted to get a sense of reality, and for the pressure cooker of the Wheelers’ house to feel real. It was very hot. It was a small house, with all the crew jammed in there. But I think that reality fed the performances.

Do you regard it as a bleak story?

People who love the book say yes, it’s bleak but it’s wonderful: and that’s what I hope people will say about the movie.  It’s weird when people say: don’t you find it depressing? I say no. It’s sad and serious, but these are things we should be able to embrace. The idea that drama can’t be entertaining is crazy.

On the Waterfront is a tragedy. But it’s a great and uplifting movie. So are A Streetcar Named Desire and East of Eden.  Because whenever you see anything done well, it’s uplifting.

The idea that tragedy is somehow depressing is wrong. If it works, it makes you feel more alive to have that experience, and that’s what I’m pushing for in Revolutionary Road. Yes, it’s tragic, but it also somehow stimulates you to feel more alive. And that was my goal.

Revolutionary Road is out now

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