"Revolutionary Road" is the new Oscar buzz-provoking movie starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, the actors' first appearance together since the unsinkable blockbuster "Titanic" was released a dozen years ago.
The new film, which has opened in Atlanta theaters, is based on the gloomily observant novel by Richard Yates about Frank and April Wheeler, their life in 1950s American suburbia and an existential crisis that leads to desperation. We spoke with DiCaprio about the themes of "Revolutionary Road" and about his co-star.
Q: Frank and April consider themselves "special" in their rather dull world, and everyone expects great things from them. But the film is not optimistic about the American Dream they've followed. It feels like a movie for recession times — or am I reading too much into it?
A: You never know when a period film will strike a nerve with our times. If there's a parallel, it's that there's a lot of anxiety [in the movie] about the near future. The conformity of the '50s is the backdrop, and the pursuit of happiness is a very American value.
But it's interesting, the more we got into it, the more the '50s fell away. There's no nostalgia; it's a dark look back — no kitsch, no high-gloss cars. It's about the great migration into the suburbs and the formation of iconic family images, and the disintegration [of those images] to make their lives unique.
Q: Tell us about making a second movie with Kate Winslet.
A: We've been good friends since "Titanic." There's a lot of mutual respect — I think of her as the leading actress of her generation. We'd been actively looking for the right vehicle together, but we knew we couldn't tread on similar territory — that would be a disaster and something we didn't want to do as actors. "Revolutionary Road" is the antithesis of "Titanic" — it's the dissolution of a relationship rather than falling in love against all odds.
Q: So how'd these roles come to you?
A: We're lucky to have Sam Mendes [Winslet's husband] as the director, and I read Justin Haythe's screenplay first and got interested. Then I read [Yates'] novel, which filled in the gaps for me. It's such a work of genius, how he taps into each character's subconscious, their doubts and fears. The novel filled in all the back story work an actor had to do.
Q: Then there's Michael Shannon as John, the mathematician on leave from the mental hospital who is sort of a "holy fool" archetype.
A: John is the barometer of truth. He's given up on having a happy and normal life. John sees that I [Frank Wheeler] don't have any courage. He says things no one else can articulate, but since he's crazy it's easy to dismiss.
Q: Yet he's bull's-eye accurate. It's devastating and liberating to hear his clinical analysis.
A: Exactly. The more I got involved [with filming], the more narcissistic the Wheelers seemed. Even their children are irrelevant to them. They're totally self-consumed, wife-swapping and all that, but at the same time they're fascinating characters, they're intrinsically human and flawed. No one is heroic, so your sympathy shifts around.
Q: The casting feels especially sharp. How did the roles fit you?
A: Frank Wheeler is very reactive, multifaceted, but he's a puppy who at the end of the day wants to be told he's doing a good job, to be congratulated. Men are simpler to figure out.
Q: And April?
A: [She] is a more complicated bag of tricks — she can't find how to make herself happy. There is no solution — and that's part of what the film is about.
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