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Kate's double date on road to Oscars
Kiran Randhawa16.12.08
KATE WINSLET arrived at the world premiere of the film the critics are hailing as her best chance yet for an Oscar.
The British actress was accompanied in Los Angeles by on-screen husband and co-star Leonardo DiCaprio and her director husband Sam Mendes for the first showing of Revolutionary Road.
Also up for a Golden Globe for best drama, the film, about the struggles of a young couple living in a Connecticut suburb during the mid-Fifties, is expected to be a huge Hollywood hit.
Described by the New Yorker as "honourably and brutally unnerving" it is one of three new releases by British directors leading the charge in the Golden Globe nominations, alongside Stephen Daldry's The Reader and Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire.
Winslet, 33, is up for best actress award for her role as DiCaprio's highly-strung wife in the adaption of the American novel by Richard Yates. DiCaprio, 34, has also been nominated for best actor while Mendes is competing in the best director category.
The film has already won glowing reviews. Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote: "Revolutionary Road is a very good big-screen adaptation of an outstanding American novel - faithful, intelligent, admirably acted, superbly shot."
Tim Grierson of Screen International, describes Winslet and Di Caprio - acting together for the first time since Titanic a decade ago - as "compelling as young people who simply don't have the emotional maturity to juggle their conflicting desires for material success, personal fulfilment and the rewards of raising a family".
Boxoffice Magazine said the film "packs considerable punch" while movie website CinemaBlend hailed it as "vital and brilliant".
Mendes, who won an Oscar for American Beauty in 2000, arrived at the premiere at the Mann Village Theatre with his two actors and Kathy Bates, who also stars in the film.
Winslet has also been nominated for her role in The Reader, a post-Nazi Germany drama starring Ralph Fiennes in which she plays a concentration camp officer. The film is also up for three Globes and is tipped to compete with Revolutionary Road for the most number of Oscar nominations.
She has been nominated for an Oscar five times but has never won.
