A mannered comedy of manners that, in its eagerness to be all things to all people, ends up being nothing much of anything.
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07/31/08
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Married Life (2008)
57
%
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
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.
07/31/08
Superbly directed, thought-provoking blend of Hitchcock movies, 1940s pastiche and Bette Davis-style melodrama, featuring terrific performances from Cooper and Clarkson.
07/31/08
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.
07/18/08
In the end, it feels a bit undercooked, but the actors keep us glued to the screen
07/03/08
It swings from Far From Heaven-alike lush melodrama to Double Indemnity-like noir to something approaching black comedy, and the transitions never quite work. Accomplished then, but no classic.
06/27/08
All in all, this was a fun little, old fashioned pot boiler.
06/18/08
It's elegant, unhurried, and, if you meet it half way, softly satisfying ... like the muffled clap of a velvet-covered ring box snapping shut.
06/02/08
One of the dullest, most thoroughly pointless motion pictures ever made.
05/27/08
I suspect Hitchcock would enjoy watching this slow-churning thriller, which pilfers a few of the master's storytelling tricks as it revels in its own dark heart.
05/02/08
Agreeable, nicely adult entertainment that's satisfying without ever being exciting.
04/22/08
Sachs combines humor, suspense, and twists of plot that keep the ground shifting under our feet.
04/13/08
Dramatizes the notion that a person's 'burden of conscience' is not an innate reality but a malleable construct, motivated by narcissism.
04/11/08
Never says much about the marital institution that is fresh.
04/06/08
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.
04/04/08
It's best to ignore these scenes from a marriage; stick with Ingmar Bergman instead.
04/02/08
A sly, pitch-black domestic manifesto that's scabrous enough to suggest that if you design your own cage, you'll forget that you're trapped.
04/02/08
Married Life gives new meaning to the phrase, "'til death do us part."
03/30/08
Ultimately, the movie takes its characters, and the absurd ethical dilemma it subjects them to, far too seriously.
03/28/08
It is a nicely executed, skillfully acted and atmospheric exercise in genre stage craft, but so dry and low-key that it is never really involving.
03/28/08
Latest 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. 
More...
March 06, 2008:
Critics Consensus: 10,000 B.C. is Primitive; Bank Gets the Job Done
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
More...
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