Married Life (2008)
Average Rating: 5.9/10
Reviews Counted: 116
Fresh: 64 | Rotten: 52
Married Life has excellent performances and flashes of dark wit, but it suffers from tonal shifts and uneven pacing.
Average Rating: 6.2/10
Critic Reviews: 34
Fresh: 20 | Rotten: 14
Married Life has excellent performances and flashes of dark wit, but it suffers from tonal shifts and uneven pacing.
liked it
Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 4,862
Movie Info
After entering into a passionate affair with a much younger woman, an unhappily married man resorts to murder as a means of eliminating his wife in director Ira Sachs' period melodrama. Set in the 1940s, Marriage tells the tale of Harry (Chris Cooper) -- a man whose wife, Pat (Patricia Clarkson), only wants sex. Smitten by the beautiful Kay (Rachel McAdams) but ultra-sensitive to his wife's feelings -- so sensitive that he can't stand the thought of breaking her heart -- Harry opts to poison his
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Cast
-
Pierce Brosnan
Richard Langley -
Chris Cooper
Harry Allen -
Rachel McAdams
Kay Nesbitt -
Patricia Clarkson
Pat Allen -
David Wenham
John O'Brien -
Sheila Paterson
Mrs. Walsh -
-
Erin Boyes
Becky -
Elijah St. Germain
Little Charlie -
Terence Kelly
Dr. Anderson -
Timothy Webber
Alvin Walters -
Rebecca Codling
Photo Store Clerk -
Dolores Drake
Ticket Taker -
Malcom Boddington
Well-Tailored Man -
Carrie Anne Fleming
Operator -
Sean Tyson
Policeman -
Ty Olsson
Policeman -
Anna Williams
O'Brien's Girlfriend -
Alex Stevens
Charades Player -
Suzanne Ristic
Charades Player -
Fred Keating
Charades Player -
Kathleen Duborg
Charades Player -
Mike Cook
Charades Player -
Dale Floyd
Charades Player -
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All Critics (121) | Top Critics (36) | Fresh (64) | Rotten (52) | DVD (7)
It looks beautiful, and the convoluted plotting is initially the right side of Hitchcock pastiche, but the central conundrum is teased out over so many twists and false climaxes that ultimately it's a shrug, not a shock, which greets the denouement.
Sachs combines humor, suspense, and twists of plot that keep the ground shifting under our feet.
It's as dry as the martinis these well-dressed stiffs keep ordering at that perfectly preserved oak, leather and velvet bar before hopping into their vintage convertibles.
It oscillates between stale period piece and unengaging melodrama, coyly seducing viewers with the potential it fails to fulfill.
Offers audiences movie pleasures, as well as emotionally authentic challenges.
Married Life is an engaging romance noir, a sort of updated The Postman Always Rings Twice that packs its surprises into four characters, none of them predictable.
The roundelay structure and Hitchcockian nods could have easily given way to a sardonic puppet theater, but Sachs and screenwriter Oren Moverman care too much about their characters to turn them into pawns
One of the more ethically dubious films to come out of Hollywood in years.
This darkly comic dramatic thriller, which is set just after World War II, is more than merely watchable. It's very smart and is old-fashioned in several respects.
It is as though filmmaker Ira Sachs fears that just making a film about infidelity is too straight, too pedestrian, so, he's got to introduce the possibility that murder is on the horizon.
Even movies that dare to paint dark portraits of the sacred institution can't resist glorifying it in the end.
The ensemble cast chemistry is superb in its nearly suffocating tangle of repressed passions, but the family-values wrap-up of all these messy erotic tensions feels ultimately far too pat and unresolved.
Once he gets out from under his influences and trusts his own gut, Sachs might become a major director.
Thought-provoking themes swirl around in this drama, brought to life by a skilled cast and a director who plays with Hitchcockian themes and imagery. In the end, it feels a bit undercooked, but the actors keep us glued to the screen.
It's a good cast, with Cooper outstanding, but Sachs's direction is stodgy and the screenplay is grindingly self-conscious.
The tangled web which slowly causes the film's relationships to disintegrate is brilliantly woven. However, you can't help wishing the climax packs a bit more of a dramatic punch.
A noirish 1940s-set character study, it's an initially intriguing tale of infidelity and betrayal that smoulders, but never quite catches fire.
A classy cast and production design to die for are the only features of note in an underpowered tale of adultery and intrigue in '50s America.
Married Life may fall short of the best Hollywood melodrama, but its nicely observed situations and old-fashioned storytelling ironically lend this a freshness more on-the-nose infidelity tales are missing.
The movie is determinedly low-key, but honest, with a wrenching break-up scene, sharp work from Clarkson, and a final thought that lingers, about never really knowing what your other half is thinking.
A well-acted but lugubrious noir, which is somehow not quite thrilling enough to be a thriller, and not quite profound enough to be a character study.
The layers of deception are as meticulously constructed as the impeccable 1940s production and costume design. Unfortunately, the film doesn't maintain that distinctive noir cruelty, as hard as red lacquered finger nails.
A mannered comedy of manners that, in its eagerness to be all things to all people, ends up being nothing much of anything.
Superbly directed, thought-provoking blend of Hitchcock movies, 1940s pastiche and Bette Davis-style melodrama, featuring terrific performances from Cooper and Clarkson.
An ode to Hollywood movies of the 40s and 50s, with its rich story, its post-war middle class mores of US society, its production design and its characters blundering around a moral dilemma.
Audience Reviews for Married Life
Super Reviewer
The only other surprise Married Life has up its sleeve is a fantastic performance by Rachel McAdams. We fully expect Chris Cooper to be great, so no surprise there. Pierce Brosnan offers nothing exceptional but operates well within type; Clarkson, as much as I love her, offers a studied but uncomplicated riff on her "housewife experienced in the art of suffering" routine. McAdams, though, is a fascinating actress; her highly limited filmography speaks well of an enigmatic allure, which she funnels elegantly into Kay Nesbitt. Kay is a deceptively deep woman, observant and compassionate but with a clear sense of what she wants for herself. She hesitates, but not because she is expected to, but out of legitimate concern for others. We learn something new about her in every scene we spend with her; McAdams does a commendable job unfurling different layers of this character as the film progresses, never giving us too little or too much. So great.
I really wish there was more to this movie, because I feel like it's perched on the brink of greatness but just needed a bit more thought. Another rewrite. Something to energize it more. Maybe a sharper visual eye - there's nothing interesting to look at here other than the opening titles. In its current form, it's doomed to be forgotten, if only to be rediscovered as an actorly curio and subsequently reminding its finders why it was forgotten in the first place.
Super Reviewer
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