Too Real. Too Painful.

As a longtime admirer of the novel “Revolutionary Road” (Yates can really turn a phrase), I thrilled with anticipation when I learned one of my favorite actors, Leonardo DiCaprio, was to star in a big-screen adaptation. It’s an actors’ movie. In fact, the word "acting" seems cheap and insufficient to describe what DiCaprio and Winslett accomplished in this extraordinary film that on the surface indicts suburbia but more deeply jabs at narcissism. Forget about "characters," The reunited "Titanic" stars employ their legendary chemistry to engender wholly realized, actual people, people so real that it's sometimes uncomfortable to watch their private lives imploding in an arena so public as a movie theater. There in lies the problem with this film's fleeting popularity and Oscar snub. There is no irony. No editorial comment. No distance of any kind. Just two hours of raw emotion. Director Sam Mendes and his stars perfectly depict-- note-by-note, tear-by-tear, deception-by-deception-- the painful collapse of a marriage and shameful self-realizations of one's small place in the world. But who wants to live through that -- even as a spectator?