Kate, Leo, Doom & Gloom: Making "Revolutionary Road" (Possible Spoiler)

RICHARD YATES'S 1961 novel, "Revolutionary Road," is far from the kind of property that typically becomes a big Hollywood movie, especially one starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in their first post-"Titanic" outing together. For one thing, the book is set back in the mid-20th century -- an era that, until "Mad Men" came along to exhume it, was thought to have about as much entertainment potential as the Bronze Age. The story requires armies of boring fedora-wearing commuters to disembark from Grand Central every morning. The characters wear dopey clothes and drive boatlike cars, and everyone drinks and smokes too much -- even pregnant women.

Nor does it help that "Revolutionary Road" is among the bleakest books ever written. It ends [REDACTED POSSIBLE SPOILER, CLICK THROUGH TO READ]. Partly autobiographical, the novel tells the story of Frank and April Wheeler, who in the mid-1950s move with their two children to the 'burbs (the movie was shot on location in Darien, Conn., a good deal more upscale than the Wheelers' town) and from the minute they get there hold themselves apart...

By all accounts, that the movie did get made is owing mostly to the drive and enthusiasm of Ms. Winslet, who was taken with the script from the moment she read it. "I loved the emotional nakedness, the brutal honesty about what can sometimes happen in a marriage," she said in an interview. "And also all the minor characters are so good."

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