Leo review about RR

Excerpts from San Francisco Chronicle interview with DiCaprio about "RR" ....enjoyed the excerpt where DiCaprio talks about Frank....also..noticed at bottom of interview that "RR" opens there on Jan 2nd as well

Q: Did you read the book before making the film?

A: No, after the screenplay. It tapped in to all these characters' subconscious in an amazing way. What Yates does unbelievably in the novel is he switches the sympathies from character to character. You never know who to have compassion for.

Q: You and Kate were trying to achieve some kind of parity between the characters. Were a lot of your discussions about that?

A: Yes, they were. That's what's fascinating about the novel. There's no clear-cut hero. I think that April is the most heroic character in the movie because she's willing to risk everything to find her own happiness - but, by the same token, with utter disregard for what she already has. And Frank is detestable at the beginning of the movie, and then you see him desperately trying to hold on and salvage his relationship. He is unheroic and uncourageous in the sense that he wants to be a product of his environment. He wants to have this normal, humdrum life. This is what's very rare in movies. If this were written today, you would have two normal people in the suburbs who have a dead body stashed in the trunk or win the lottery or figure out some nuclear code.

Q: I'm not sure I completely buy the argument that Frank is just being conventional. Isn't he also being practical?

A: I think that's what's good about this movie. I had my own reaction to Frank, too. I understood him. I'm saying that in the sense that she is the only one who is willing to say, "You know what? This life is not good enough for me." I don't think the film is a reflection of the confines of the 1950s or the suburbs. It's about what we're capable of doing as human beings. And I think there is an element to April that I disagree with fundamentally as well. And that is, "Let's look at what you already have here. And let's start to think about the children." What's interesting about the book is that the children are almost inconsequential to these people. They're like a piece of furniture. "Let's move to Paris. What are we going to do about the couch and the car? Oh, we'll give that to them, we'll sell this. What about the kids? They'll be fine." There's an element of narcissism to these characters, and that's what makes the movie great - it certainly makes the novel great, I'll say that. There is no gallant act of heroism wherein one of these characters defies all the odds and wins at the end.

Q: In one stand-out scene, April is asking Frank about a product he's working on, and it's clear that something is going on with her and Frank doesn't quite know how to take it.

A: Sam has said that it's some of his best directing, and I think Yates did interviews saying he felt that that was the best piece of writing he'd ever done in his life.

Q: That must have been a cool scene to act.

A: Very cool, man.

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD (R) opens Friday at Bay Area theaters.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/26/PKND14PD4K.DTL