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Married Life (2008)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:113
Fresh:64
Rotten:49
Average Rating:6/10
Consensus: Married Life has excellent performances and flashes of dark wit, but it suffers from tonal shifts and uneven pacing.
Theatrical Release:Mar 7, 2008 Limited
Box Office: $1,197,472
Synopsis: This melodramatic musing on the trials and tribulations of marriage features a small but talented ensemble cast that includes Patricia Clarkson, Chris Cooper, and Rachel McAdams. Set in 1949, the... [More]
Starring: Chris Cooper, Pierce Brosnan, Patricia Clarkson, Rachel McAdams
Director: Ira Sachs
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Reviews for Married Life
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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 Full Review |
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3/5 |
One of the more ethically dubious films to come out of Hollywood in years. Full Review |
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3/4 |
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. Full Review |
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 2.5/4 |
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. Full Review |
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Even movies that dare to paint dark portraits of the sacred institution can’t resist glorifying it in the end. Full Review |
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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. Full Review |
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4/5 |
Once he gets out from under his influences and trusts his own gut, Sachs might become a major director. Full Review |
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3.5/5 |
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. Full Review |
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4/5 |
Superbly directed, thought-provoking blend of Hitchcock movies, 1940s pastiche and Bette Davis-style melodrama, featuring terrific performances from Cooper and Clarkson. Full Review |
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2/5 |
It’s a good cast, with Cooper outstanding, but Sachs’s direction is stodgy and the screenplay is grindingly self-conscious. Full Review |
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3/5 |
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. Full Review |
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A noirish 1940s-set character study, it’s an initially intriguing tale of infidelity and betrayal that smoulders, but never quite catches fire. Full Review |
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2/5 |
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. Full Review |
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2/5 |
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. Full Review |
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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. Full Review |
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3/5 |
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. Full Review |
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3/5 |
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. Full Review |
CommentLatest News for Married Life
September 04, 2008:
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. 
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This week at the movies, we've got prehistoric passion (10,000 B.C., starring Steven Strait and Camilla Belle), travel travails (College Road Trip, starring Maritn Lawrence and... More...
March 06, 2008:
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.
More...
February 09, 2008:
Trailer & Poster review
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