A first for Leo: An ordinary man

NEW YORK - In "Revolutionary Road," Leonardo DiCaprio does not play a CIA agent, a reclusive multimillionaire or a South African diamond smuggler. Instead, he plays Frank Wheeler, a suburban husband, father and office worker - a character of whom it could be said that there's nothing unusual or extraordinary at all.

"I suppose it would be a first," DiCaprio said of this exceedingly normal, almost banal role. "A lot of times, movies don't get made unless it's about something larger than life, or something people find is more interesting than" - and here he laughed - "the monotony of everyday existence."

But "Revolutionary Road" did get made, and it's not your everyday Hollywood product. The movie features two of today's biggest stars, DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, in their first film together since the blockbuster "Titanic" appeared more than a decade ago. But instead of grand sets and elaborate costumes, this comparatively low-budget effort focuses on character and dialogue. And its penetrating, somewhat harrowing story stands out even in a winter movie season filled with serious dramas. All of which might make "Revolutionary Road," directed by Winslet's husband, Sam Mendes, the "Ordinary People" of 2008.

DiCaprio, 34, said that the project was spearheaded by Winslet, a longtime fan of Richard Yates' critically praised but largely overlooked 1961 novel. The story, set in 1955, focuses on Frank Wheeler and his wife, April, an attractive, 30-ish couple whose move to a pleasant but lifeless Connecticut suburb hastens the collapse of their marriage and the evaporation of their youthful idealism.

"This is a book that's deeply beloved by a large number of people, but there are also people who just react to it and have to put the book down," said Justin Haythe, who adapted Yates' novel for the screen. "There's that shudder of recognition as he paints people in all their flaws."

If April (Winslet) embodies falseness - in both the book and the film, she's first seen caked in makeup for an amateur theater production - then Frank embodies failure. Bright, clever and filled with vague dreams of greatness, Frank likes to disparage the "hopeless emptiness" of his suburban milieu. But he settles for it, nevertheless. It's the tragic flaw of nearly every character in the film.

DiCaprio said that Frank Wheeler marks a refreshing change from his long resumé of heroes, martyrs and icons. "I like that he just fell short of fulfilling his dreams," he said. "He was unheroic, he was slightly cowardly. He was willing to just be a product of his environment. I liked all those things."

The role required some research, which meant watching several documentaries about the 1950s and the birth of the American suburb. One film, DiCaprio recalled, focused wholly on Levittown, N.Y. He also asked his mother about the era's constrictive gender roles, which often reduced men to breadwinners and women to bread bakers.

"We had to look back in time and not be nostalgic about it," he said. "This wasn't a kitschy look at the 1950s and suburban life, and Sam was very careful about that. He wanted to make it as bleak and stark and realistic as he possibly could." In the end, the period details - streamlined cars, weighty telephones, the omnipresent cigarettes - seem to matter less than the interaction between the Wheelers.

"It inevitably became irrelevant whatever time period this was in," DiCaprio said. "It became about two people struggling to be happy."

Moviegoers hoping to recapture the swooning romance between Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater, the beautiful young passengers of "Titanic," may get a rude awakening with "Revolutionary Road," but that's fine by DiCaprio. Over the years, he said, he and Winslet have consciously avoided projects that would reunite them in any similar way.

"That would be absolutely silly," he said with a laugh. "It would seem like we were somehow trying to reprise an old kindling of luuuv, or something. . . . So this was very much conducive to the type of movie that we would want to do together. It's the disintegration of a relationship, and two people that are meant to be apart." *