Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here. Happy New Year and all that crap.

Not satisfied to dissect the modern American marriage with AMERICAN BEAUTY, British theater director turned moviemaker (he also directed the excellent ROAD TO PERDITION and JARHEAD) Sam Mendes has turned his attentions to picking apart the American marriage circa the 1950s, when sex roles were just beginning to change but so was the definition of the American Dream. Based on the novel by Richard Yates (adapted here by Justin Haythe), REVOLUTIONARY ROAD features some of the finest acting I've seen in recent months as Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio re-team for the first time since TITANIC broke every box office record known to mankind. They play April and Frank Wheeler, a young couple who have always set themselves apart from their friends. They weren't the same as those other suburban Connecticut dwellers who went to the office every day (in his case) or stayed home with the kids (in her case). Yet, the more time passes, the more they find those type of people are exactly who they are, and it makes them aggressive and mean.

Frank hangs with the guys from the office (including Dylan Baker), but we never get a sense he feels close to any of them. April plays the perfect homemaker and puts on a strong front when one-woman welcome wagon/real estate agent Helen (Kathy Bates) shows up at her door. Bates is fantastic, especially when she brings over her recently institutionalized grown son (live wire Michael Shannon) over for a visit. The Wheelers even have best friends, nearby neighbors Milly and Shep (Kathryn Hahn and David Harbour). Perhaps to feel just a little more special than his married life allows him, Frank even has a little something on the side, a meaningless affair with a young woman from the secretarial pool (Zoe Kazan, granddaughter of the late director Elia Kazan).

What Mendes clearly is going for with REVOLUTIONARY ROAD is to expose, irritate and perhaps even poke until it hurts the cracks in the lives of this couple that just want a little more out of life than what everybody else has. Clearly in a desperate attempt to capture what she loved about their lives to begin with, April maps out a seemingly reasonable plan to move the family to Paris for several years, allowing Frank to relax and be creative while she works at a high-paying job she's got lined up for herself. The idea grows on him, but as they begin to tell their neighbors and co-workers, you can almost feel the earth shift off its axis ever so slightly. Shortly after they begin to make the arrangements to go to Europe, we see Frank begin to lose his nerves. He gets an offer for a phenomenal promotion in his company, and he doesn't say no right away. Pulling in the other direction is April, who behaves as if this trip is not only the thing that will save their marriage but also her life.

An ill-timed visit by Helen and her still quite off-balance son for dinner sets off a chain reaction in the Wheeler household that fates the family to go through some very ugly times. Even if the rest of the movie were utter crap, Michael Shannon's "I-see-through-your-mask" portrayal of a man who has been on the wrong end of dozens of electroshock therapy sessions is worth sitting down in the theater to see this film. Shannon has been getting more and more attention of late with roles in WORLD TRADE CENTER, BUG, BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOUR DEAD and the extraordinary Shotgun Stories, and it's great to see him working steadily and getting such meaty parts. In a weird way, his character doesn't even belong in this movie; he belongs in a better one. His performance and observations are so contrary to what every other character does and says, he sticks out in this movie in more way that one. But in a perfect way, it works. Shannon is a gift this movie almost doesn't deserve.

Winslet will get quite a few accolades for her beyond-brave performance, but DiCaprio really surprised me as this weak, waffling man who can't stand by the courage of his convictions or be empowered by the love and support of a strong woman. He puffs up his chest for the sake of his silly mistress, but can hardly look April in the eye when he tells her he's having second thoughts about their travel plans. DiCaprio as an emotional coward is as impressive as any heroic character he's ever played.

An ill-timed pregnancy is thrown into the mix late in REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, but by that point fates are pretty much sealed. The film's greatest weakness is its script. Some of the dialogue just never rung with its choppy and stagey construction. I don't always need character's motivations spelled out for me, but a few clues here and there concerning the origins of this couple's strife would have been useful, especially in such an emotionally loaded work. The acting saves the stilted writing from falling flat and it saves the film from dying a lonely death on the screen. When Winslet and DiCaprio are on screen together, the devastation is total. In many ways, these are the best two actors to play this part, effectively laying waste to their perfect (well, except for that dying part) TITANIC romance. I hope every single person who went to see that movie 10 times comes and sees REVOLUTIONARY ROAD just once in the hopes of seeing what a marriage between Jack and Rose might have been like. (Don't forget, Kathy Bates as Molly Brown was a witness to their original love affair almost 12 years ago, so it's only fitting that she be on hand in this film to watch them self-destruct.) It's not all that difficult to look past the sub-par script with the help of some outstanding performances, but it's also impossible to ignore the film's shortcomings. I'm leaning on the side of recommending the film, but don't say I didn't warn you.

-- Capone
capone@aintitcoolmail.com