April Wheeler : "It didn't have to be Paris."
Shep Campbell : "You just wanted out, huh?"
April Wheeler : "I just wanted in."
This shows the fundamental disconnect between April and those around her; Shep, although he cares very much about her, thinks that she has tired of her life in Connecticut and wants out of it. She feels that she does not participate in life, and that the days go by without purpose or intent. She wants in to her life; the life she imagined she would have, the life she feels she should have. Life, she feels, is passing her by, and she and Frank are living the same cookie cutter existence as every other inhabitant of Revolutionary Road. This is what she wants out of; the life that she feels she is not participating fully in.
Shep, who has feelings for her, of course believes that she wants out of her life as it presently is because she does not want to be married to Frank anymore. He believes he could offer her an out by starting a relationship, which is not something that she wants at all, but goes to show how little of the Wheeler marriage those looking at it from the outside actually understand.
It takes backbone to lead the life you want, Frank.
To those outside the marriage, it might appear that Frank is the stronger of the couple. April seems to be constantly on the borderline of depression and is often dissatisfied with her life.She is also frustrated with her role as wife and mother when she wanted to be striving towards her career as an actress. Frank, too, has taken a job that now bores him. He is also dissatisfied with the way his life has turned out.
However, the one in the relationship with the strength is actually April. She knows that they need to make a drastic change in order to achieve the life that they want. She is prepared to make this change, to step out of her comfort zone and jump into the unknown so that they can start to live the life they have dreamed of. Although Frank says that this is he wants too, he eventually decides to take a promotion that is offered to him at work, and he traps April into having another child by announcing her pregnancy to their friends, and using it as the reason for their not going to Paris after all. This is what April means in her statement to him; Frank lacks backbone and takes the easiest path to change. He took the fork in the road that most other people took as well rather than taking the road less traveled and actually achieving the life that he aspired to.
You are an empty, empty hollow shell of a woman. I mean, what the hell are you doing in my house if you hate me so much? Why the hell are you married to me?
The question Frank asks April - why is she married to him? - is also a question that the film's audience are asking as well. Why is she married to an insensitive bully of a man who has no respect for her and is utterly abusive? This epithet is also a sign of the way Frank sees their marriage; Frank refers to their home as "my house" rather than our house, which clearly shows that he does not think of them as an equal partnership. He feels it is his right to tell April what she can and can't do, and when this starts to impact her ability to achieve her dreams and have the life that she always wanted, she becomes depressed. He does not try to understand her feelings and instead calls her "empty". There is actually plenty of emotion inside April, but she has become used to not being able to focus it anywhere.
Frank also feels that she hates him, but she does not; her emotion is one of indifference rather than hate; not only has she fallen out of love with Frank, she has fallen out of any kind of feeling whatsoever. This is something he cannot accept which is why he continues to accuse her of hating him.
