Word: dicaprios
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...events of normal cinematic romance, and Cameron's script presents the lead actors with some incredible cliches. DiCaprio's Jack is idealized as a poor free spirit who just happens to be a sensitive artist. DiCaprio displays a youthful charm, and occasionally an intensity that recalls some of his past superb work. The script requires the young Rose (Kate Winslet) to be essentially two different characters: a repressed aristocrat and a rebellious teenager. The imaginative Winslet carefully balances these opposing characteristics with complete success...
...film's main character. The story of the ill-fated voyage is seen through the eyes of Rose (Gloria Stuart) who at the age of 100 tells her experiences to Titanic excavator Brock Lovell (Bill Paxton). Her story involves her romance with the impoverished passenger Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio...
Unfortunately, each of the other characters represents a segment of society rather than a person, from Winslet's snobbish mother (Frances Fisher) to DiCaprio's earthy Italian friend (Danny Nucci). Only the underutilized Kathy Bates, who provides tremendous fun as the 'Unsinkable' Molly Brown, stands apart from the cardboard cast. No one is worse than Billy Zane as Winslet's insufferable, domineering fiancee. The character is tragically thin, and Zane does less with it than one would think possible...
...romance resonates best during the second half of the film, a prime example of how special effects can service a storyline instead of replacing it. Several bold action sequences develop the romantic storyline better than do the more character-driven scenes. The most exciting of these occurs when DiCaprio is handcuffed in the bowels of the flooding ship and Winslet must save him. For a film that depends so greatly on cliches, this is a surprisingly effective role reversal, for Winslet does not abandon her femininity to make this switch...
Fine, Jim--build the damned ship, sink the damned ship. But in the 90 or so minutes before the iceberg slices open the starboard side, some compelling romantic fiction is in order. Here the film fails utterly. It imagines an affair between free-spirited artist Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) in steerage and Philadelphia blueblood Rose Bukater (Kate Winslet), unhappily engaged to wealthy Cal Hockley (Billy Zane). DiCaprio has a smooth, winsome beauty, and Winslet, who at first seems bulky beside him, comes to look ravishingly ravaged by the climax. Everyone else is a caricature of class, designed only to illustrate...