A Titanic reunion: DiCaprio, Winslet re-team in 'Revolutionary Road'

Most people might consider "Revolutionary Road" to be a domestic drama about a married couple in conflict when faced with that thing Lawrence Kasden called "The Big Chill," the moment when young idealism gets cooled by the icy compromises of real life.

I see "Revolutionary Road" as a thoughtful domestic horror tale with elements of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." What happens when a person wakes up one morning to discover her spouse has become the 1950s equivalent of a pod person who's surrendered his dreams to conform to the status quo?

"Revolutionary Road" marks the first time that Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet have teamed up on the silver screen since setting 1997's "Titanic" ablaze with their romantic chemistry.

Instead of a story about a strong, fiery young man who helps a quiet young woman break free of social conventions in 1912, "Revolutionary Road" - based on the 1961 novel by Richard Yates - presents a strong, independent woman who inspires her husband to be more than he thinks he can, and break free from the gray constraints of a suburban lifestyle.

But like Daniel Day-Lewis' smitten young man in Martin Scorsese's "The Age of Innocence," DiCaprio's Frank Wheeler doesn't have the strength to swim against powerful social currents for very long, even when romantic ideals are on the line.

DiCaprio and Winslet play Frank and April, who meet at a party and fall in love when they realize they share a view of themselves as special people destined for more than the routine lives of suburban lemmings who either commute to work at boring jobs every day or stay home and be Donna Reed.

But one marriage and two children later, April realizes they've allowed themselves to become trapped in the very lifestyle they despise.

Frank works for the same boring company his late father did, and it doesn't take much for April to reawaken the dreamer inside her husband. They decide to chuck it all and move to France. No job prospects. Just go and live the dream.

The announcement of their impending move instantly unnerves everyone around them, especially their more limited neighbors Shep and Millie (David Harbour and Kathryn Hahn), whose private condemnation of the Wheelers' plans as impractical barely masks resentment of their boldness.

Shep has another reason for being upset. He watches April from across the proverbial white picket fence with eager eyes. He doesn't want her to leave.

Another neighbor, a real estate agent named Helen (Kathy Bates), has a clinically insane son named John (Michael Shannon) who blows into this movie like a dramatic hurricane. Compelled to be embarrassingly honest, John acts as a one-man Greek chorus, laying out the plot and the characters' motives, and supplying an internal summary of what's going on for people who need an update on what they've just seen.

Shannon's oddly endearing, even humorous performance provides the liveliest moments in "Revolutionary Road," even though Winslet and DiCaprio imbue their wife-and-husband team with as much dramatic edge as the story allows.

"Revolutionary Road" is directed with caring flair by Winslet's husband, Sam Mendes, who creates a movie that, while extremely good, still fails to hit the emotional high notes of his Oscar-winning drama "American Beauty," which this movie endlessly recalls (thanks, in part, to Thomas Newman's similar-sounding score).

"We're running from the hopeless emptiness of life," Frank explains to his friends.

Tragically, Frank doesn't realize he's trying to run from himself.

"Revolutionary Road"

Rating: 3&189; Stars

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Kathy Bates, Michael Shannon

Directed by: Sam Mendes

Other: A Paramount Vantage release. At the River East 21 and Century Centre Cinema in Chicago, and Evanston CineArt 6. Rated R for nudity, sexual situations, language. 120 minutes