User Reviews

The biggest problem with MARRIED LIFE, the movie not the state of existence, is the tone set by its title. Before even setting foot in the theatre, your mind is filled with preconceived notions about the likelihoods the film will deliver. You cannot expect a film called MARRIED LIFE to show long term couples just as happy now as they were when they first met. In fact, in these cynical times, you might likely be disappointed if you didn't see spouses abusing each other, scheming and plotting against the other or, if you want to be old fashioned, just plain cheating on each other. Perhaps to offset these expectations, writer/director, Ira Sachs, sets his story in the 1940's, a supposedly simpler time when people were married and stayed that way despite their personal unhappiness. Even a setting as delicately composed as this one is not a good enough disguise for its contemporary sensibility. The film's fate seems sealed as soon as the opening credits begin to roll. Similar in design and manner to television's "Desperate Housewives", a show that has built its reputation on couples scheming, they seem to announce Sach's intention to give us exactly what we expect. Only when the final animated frame settles on a city skyline and you expect the real thing to take its place, Sachs reveals that it is in fact a reflection. With the lens pointing inward now, I wonder if I've spoken too soon.

Like the beginning of a marriage, for a while, it is good. The strings of the score swell and sweep you up into the sentiment like a warm wind taking you for a dance in the sky overlooking a quiet family-friendly suburban street. This particular street is home to Harry and Pat Allen (Chris Cooper and Patricia Clarkson). The two have been married for what might as well be forever and they still cherish and respect each other but whether they still love each other is a question that looms over their lives like a heavy cloud. Harry believes that love is defined by the desire to give constantly to the other person. Pat believes that love is sex. Despite their definitions being categorically on different pages, they are a solid, functional couple. However, Harry has found another woman, Kay (Rachel McAdams in a refreshing return that is more tender and vulnerable than past performances) for whom continuously being doted on is the perfect compliment to her lonely life. I suppose it doesn't hurt that she is younger and beautiful but Harry conveniently avoids seeing this as the motivating factor for his affection.

And so Harry finds himself in quite the pickle. He doesn't want to burden his wife with the embarrassment of a divorce but yet he cannot deny that he is no longer in love with her. Harry is a sensible businessman who lives his life with order and reason and is still able to embrace his more romantic sensibility, wanting his life to embody the love he feels. He racks his brain to come up with the tidiest, most logical solution to his dilemma and somehow, the best plan he can come up with is to kill his wife. He rationalizes that this will cause the least amount of pain to all involved, including his children. Is it me or is this the least rational course of action? Essentially, this becomes MARRIED LIFE's main storyline and as it is ridiculous in concept, it also serves to undermine the intelligence of what was otherwise a fairly engaging film. Even Sachs seems unsure of this whole direction as he throws in a couple of painfully obvious scenes about how death can take away misery rather than add to it. If Sachs isn't buying it, I'm not sure how he thought anyone else would.

Despite its shortcomings, MARRIED LIFE does plant a few seeds of wisdom in its perfectly tended garden. The banalities of spending every day of your life with the same person are accepted by most of the characters as a perfectly normal piece of the pie. With decades past between their time and ours, have we really changed all that much? There are so many things happening and left unsaid in any marriage with both partners none the wiser. Subsequently, we have fine-tuned an uncanny ability to exist in a state of comfortable misery. We may look elsewhere for distraction but so many never walk away from what they know isn't working. Applying that same logic makes sitting through MARRIED LIFE entirely acceptable while you wonder what's playing next door.

Harry has a big surprise in store for his friend Richard. The invitation to lunch is only an excuse for Harry to reveal to Richard he is in love with another woman, Kay. At the same time, Harry confesses his doubts of how Pat, his wife, will take the news he will be leaving her. Harry strongly believes Pat is too dependent on him and the shock his betrayal will have on her. Harry wants to come clean to Richard, even introducing the young woman to his friend for what appears to be his approval. What Harry does not count on is that Richard will take a fancy to Kay!

Pat, the suburban wife, suffers from a bad stomach. The medicine she takes to relieve her problem presents an opportunity for Harry to plan to murder her. Richard is shocked when he finds Pat at their cottage in the company of another man. She also comes clean to Richard, who realizes Harry's guilt is unfounded and that Pat is much stronger than she is given credit for. Richard, who is the narrator of the story, is instrumental in triggering guilt in Harry's mind, when he catches Kay with the man he thought to be his real friend and makes him think twice before committing a crime that will carry a prison sentence.

Ira Sachs, the director of "Married Life" shows an affinity to the master of the melodrama, Douglas Sirk. The screenplay, co-written with Oren Moverman, has a style that makes the viewer recall that genre in which Mr. Sirk made valuable contributions. Mr. Sachs directed with an eye for style. The late 1940s are recreated faithfully in dining rooms for executives drinking dry martinis and smoking, as well as the decor of the era. The film is a mixture of melodrama and suspense as Harry concocts his plan to get rid of the situation he finds himself in. The film is based on a novel by John Bingham "Five Roundabouts to Heaven".

Chris Cooper plays against type. He is does not appear to be comfortable with the Harry he is supposed to portrait. Patricia Clarkson, on the other hand, proves here she cannot do wrong in anything she plays. Her Pat is another triumph for the actress. Pierce Brosnan makes an excellent Richard, working with great economy to show what this man is like. The only disappointment is Rachel McAdams who appears to be much younger for both the men she is to be attracted. Appearing as a blonde, she fits well in the context of the story even if one cannot believe for a moment she feels anything for either man in love with her.

Ira Sachs' 'Forty Shades of Blue' was a story about a young Russian émigré woman and her American music impresario husband who isn't really there for her—it's a movie that's rambling, freshly observed, carefully planted in its southern milieu, and vérité in style. For his new feature Sachs was granted the opportunity to work in the Hollywood system with name actors, and he chose to shift gears completely. He adapted an old "genre" novel (his word) by John Bingham, who was John Le Carré's mentor in MI5 and the model for Le Carré's iconic character, George Smiley. 'Married Life' is a glossy period story with ironic twists. It's set in the early Fifties. Partly a social comedy, partly a 'tongue-in-cheek thriller, partly a perverse love story, it weaves back and forth a bit too much among all these possibilities to leave a lasting impression. It's a glossy, stylishly controlled inanity all ready for the collector's shelf.

Harry Allen (Chris Cooper) wants to run off with a young blonde and thinks he must kill his wife to spare her the pain of divorce. That's a new kind of mercy killing, a droll motive for murder. Whether it's a good pretext for a meditation on relationships and love, as the director believes, is another question. A greater awareness of the period might have led to the observation that divorce itself, at that time a somewhat scandalous social institution, was more disturbing than the mere psychological loss of a loved one.

Sachs is a gay man approaching straight marriage through the filter of a penchant for Joan Crawford and Bette Davis movies, much as Todd Hughes approached a Fifties interracial affair and a married man's homosexuality through the filter of Douglas Sirk melodramas in his 'Far from Heaven'—which, like this movie, featured Patricia Clarkson as the wife. 'Married Life' is more restrained than the style-obsessed 'Far from Heaven.' But though it annoys less, it does not impress as much. Both movies are feasts of campy gay cinematic style, but while Haynes launched a thousand hot debates, 'Married Life' makes one nod "Oh yes," and move on.

With its world of stifling bourgeois poshlost and its bumbling, trapped killer, this film is reminiscent of some of the minor novels of Vladimir Nabokov. And that would be a good thing, if only Sachs were Nabokov; but he isn't. Sachs' protagonist, Harry Allen, is a solemn fool. He goes about planning his murder, unaware that introducing his friend Richard Langley (a pleasant, but somewhat stilted, Pierce Brosnan) to his new girlfriend Kay (Rachel McAdams), a young widow, is a very risky move, given that she's an out-and-out babe and Richard is appealing, available, and drives a nice convertible. Anyone with an emotional IQ of 100 would see Richard has more charm than the dour Harry; but Harry's level is well below average, even for the disdainful 21st century conception of the American Fifties. Harry's also seriously mistaken about his wife Pat (Ms. Clarkson, in a dark red wig): she has other quite appetizing possibilities he isn't in the least aware of.

The movie advances at a measured pace with all its period accouterments tidily in place. Everyone has dyed hair and Chris Cooper's apparent proclivity for very dark suits is immaculately in evidence. An atmosphere of great restraint is created, the better to stun us with the story's bombshells. But it never really does.

While in 'Far from Heaven' the emotions were ramped up and operatic, those of 'Married Life' cause barely a ripple. People say they love each other, but we don't feel it and there's no visible chemistry between the actors. There is some limited compensation in the dry comedy of certain lines of dialog. There is stylized, if wan, amusement in the repetition of an idea, "a person like you can't build happiness on the suffering of others, not with the burden of morality you carry," spoken unwittingly by several characters. But that's not exactly an epigram. True, there's something unique about the confection Sachs has so carefully whipped up. But while this is more coherent than Hayne's Fifties melodrama, it utterly lacks its impact.

According to Sachs, 'Five Roundabouts to Heaven,' Bingham's source novel, ends with a lot of people dying. That might have been nice. Couples deciding to stay together after all? Gee, this is quite the time for Family Values. 'Married Life' ends with a solemnity so completely worthy of its humorless hero one may wonder if one's earlier giggles had been intended.

The well to do, middle-aged American couple, seems to be in a middle of a marital crisis. The husband is in love with a much younger women and seeks complete happiness. Well it has to be a fly in that particular ointment. " Married Life" tries to be a clever pastiche set in 1949, when women were glamorous and desperately needed protection, or that's what martini swilling, two pack a day smoking men,liked to think. So, the movie tries to be smart and amusing and a bit suspenseful, but it fails in that endeavor. With all the stirred emotions and betrayals and deceptions, in the end it doesn't go anywhere. It just fizzles and expects us to feel buzzed and refreshed.Sorry, I definitely wasn't.

Married Life is the sweetest, most tender movie you'll ever see about a man who wants to kills his wife so he can be with his young girlfriend.

In post-WWII America, Harry Allen and Richard Langley (Chris Cooper and Pierce Brosnan) are two old friends who couldn't be more different. Harry is happily married and romantic. Rich is a confirmed bachelor and cynic in the ways of love. Then one day, Rich hears something he never expected from his friend. Harry is having an affair. He still loves his wife Pat (Patricia Clarkson), but Harry has become frustrated and unfulfilled by Pat's determined unsentimentality. Harry doesn't want a good and loving companion, he wants a soul mate and he thinks he's found one in Kay Nesbitt (Rachel McAdams). Harry even introduces Kay to Rich, confident that his friend will keep his secret.

The problem is that Harry still cares about Pat and can't stand the idea of the pain and embarrassment a divorce would cause her. T hings are further complicated when Rich finds himself drawn to Kay, and then discovers something about Pat that could solve Harry's problem. Rich turns that information to his benefit, however, without ever knowing that Harry has decided the only way out of his predicament is to kill Pat. Harry thinks it's the kindest thing he can do, but discovers that killing your wife is a much thornier problem than he expected, both practically and emotionally.

If you just consider the plot, Married Life seems like a noirish thriller. It's really a relaxed and heartfelt meditation on the sanctity of marriage and how that union can prosper and satisfy, if you can protect it from the challenges of desire and impatience. It asks us to consider two people who get everything they need from each other, yet are willing to throw that away because they can't have what they want. You expect Harry to learn a lesson from his adulterous and murder-planning ways, but he doesn't learn the lesson you expected.

The acting in this movie is quite good, if a bit low key. Chris Cooper does a nice job not letting Harry collapse into a caricature. Instead of letting Harry seem like a selfish hypocrite, Cooper shows us a man whose deep emotions are simply running away with him. Brosnan is also good as the more worldly Rich who secretly envies the peace and care of his friend's marriage. Rachel McAdams is exceptionally beautiful as Kay, but her performance is unexceptional. You can understand why Harry and Rich would fall in lust with her, but McAdams never gives the character enough to make us believe they would fall madly in love with her. But the star of the show is Patricia Clarkson. She is ceaselessly charming and endearing as Pat, even more so when we discover there's more to her than just being a devoted wife.

Now, there are a couple of plot twists that are tough to swallow and the film appears to be in complete denial about the fact that McAdams looks young enough to be Cooper or Brosnan's daughter. It's one thing for "the other woman" to be much younger when the story is on the page, but when you see a couple of middle aged men enamored with a woman at least 20 years younger than they are, there are certain inescapable implications which flow from that dynamic. The age difference should say something about the relationships between Harry and Kay and Rich and Kay. Married Life, however, just cruises along without even vaguely acknowledging those implications.

A lot of stories talk about love. Far fewer talk about marriage. Even less than that focus on marriage as it actually is. Married Life is a light, funny and appealing entry into that minuscule third category. If you've ever wanted to kill the person you love, definitely give it a look.

"Forty Shades of Blue" director Ira Sachs and "The Messenger" scenarist Oren Moverman adapt British author John Bingham's pulp thriller "Five Roundabouts to Heaven" and convert it into an ironic, above-average, soap operatic potboiler. Incidentally, Bingham worked in British Intelligence during World War II so he knew something about clandestine affairs. Nevertheless, this smoldering, claustrophobic period piece about infidelity, attempted homicide and reconciliation among married couples and their single friends rarely generates combustible passion. Chris Cooper of "Breach" delivers the best performance in the most complex role as a murderous husband cheating on his wife. The top-notch cast includes former James Bond Pierce Brosnan, the beautiful Rachel McAdams, Patricia Clarkson, and David Wenham in this concise, respectable 90-minute PG-13 rated opus. "Married Live" seems like it got the short shrift from Sony Pictures Classics. If you have any doubts, you should check out the DVD special features where no less than three alternate endings are available. Despite the sterling performances and the faithfully recreated period detail, this movie remains curiously aloof and uninvolving. Meantime, the filmmakers appear to suffer from schizophrenia. Neither Sachs nor Moverman could reach a decision about whether "Married Lives" was supposed to be a genre piece, social commentary, a turgid soaper, a black comedy or a film noir murder. Sachs and Moverman alternate these diverse narrative styles in such a helter-skelter fashion that "Married Lives" lacks cohesion.

Sachs steeps us in period flavor with animated opening credits that capture the atmosphere of the 1950s. The story unfolds on September 5, 1949. As the narrator of "Married Life," Richard Langley (Pierce Brosnan of "Die Another Day") introduces us to the protagonist, Harry Allen (Chris Cooper), with whom he has been friends with since childhood. Harry is a well-heeled businessman in an anonymous metropolis in the far Northwest with an office whose picture window overlooks the sprawling city. He has been married to his wife Pat (Patricia Clarkson of "The Dead Pool") and their offspring has left home. Richard expresses a jaundiced view of marriage and describes it as "a mild kind of illness like the flu or chicken pox" from which he has maintained immunity. Of course, this immunity proves to be ephemeral. Anyway, Harry summons Richard to a diner so that he can meet his younger, bottle-blonde, sweetheart, Kay Nesbitt (radiate Rachel McAdams of "The Family Stone"), with whom he has been indulging himself. He confides in Richard that he plans to leave Pat because he wants to be "truly happy." This surprises Richard since he thought Harry and Pat had "a pretty good marriage." More to the point, Richard thinks of their marriage as "the most successful marriage" that he has ever known. Ironically, Harry wants to leave his wife because she sees marriage as purely physical, in other words, nothing but sex. Pat thinks Harry is a hopeless sentimentalist that he values romance above physical contact. Richard finds Harry's attitude amusing. "We all have to put up with somethings in life, Harry." He adds, "We can't have everything." Harry introduces Richard to Kay in the first scene in a restaurant. Caddish Richard, who indulges himself with a different woman every week, manages to seduce Kay away from Harry. Meanwhile, Harry plans to poison Pat because he cannot muster the courage to tell her about his extramarital affair. Moreover, Harry cannot live with the thought that Pat would suffer grievously after he leaves her. Ironically, Pat vocalizes the same sentiments about Harry when Richard catches John O'Brien (David Wenham of "300") at Harry and Pat's cabin in the woods. Indeed, poor, ignorant Harry has no clue that Pat has seduced another married man until later in the action. Harry has gone out and bought poison and he puts it in Pat's indigestion medicine. During a late-night ride from Kay's house, Harry picked up a hitchhiker Alvin Walters (Timothy Webber of "Terror Train") who tells our protagonist about how he has to poison a relative that was suffering unendurable agony. The poison finished her off quickly. Harry buys the poison and tries it out on their pet dog to determine its power. Richard almost lets the cat out of the bag to Pat about her husband's philandering. Later, Richard steals Kay away from Harry, and our protagonist scrambles home to save Pat from drinking her spiked medicine.

Loquacious dialogue scenes constitute the bulk of the action in "Married Lives." In this respect, Richard has the choicest lines and one that gets repeated the most often underscores the irony of this domestic drama. Richard believes that you cannot derive happiness from the unhappiness of other people. This would involve a "burden of conscience" which—according to Harry—and later Kay—neither Harry nor Pat can do. If you enjoy subdued movies where the characters never fly off the handle and scream at each, then "Married Life" may entertain you. Unfortunately, all of this intrigue leads nowhere and "Married Life" winds up being cautionary rather than combustible.

The Summary: A friend pines for his best friend's mistress as the best friend plots to off his wife rather than make her suffer the pain of divorce.

The Good: Often funny, with mostly spot-on performances, especially Pierce Brosnan and Chris Cooper. Brosnan's narration is inspired writing! Beautiful cinematography and set design as well. Good sense of place and time.

The Not So Good: The character relationships felt forced (they didn't feel like they knew one another) and something was lacking in the sense of urgency. I feel the twists weren't quite twisty enough. The best audience experiences are ones where I guess the ending, but end up not only being wrong, but even more pleased with the ending the filmmakers came up with. This, you can guess early on. As for the climax, it's a repeat of an earlier scene with the same end result so the "oomph factor" is gone. And as a Rachel McAdams fan, I was sad to see her so underutilized. She really only has about 10 minutes of screen time. If this is the girl worth betraying your best friend and killing your wife for, we need to see more of her to see why. Pretty just doesn't cut it.

Two decisions determine this film's perspective on the duplicities and compromises that characterize modern American marriage.

Director Ira Sachs sets the film in the suburban and executive posh of 1949. That's the golden age of naive illusions about marriage. Peyton Place had yet to puncture the pretence to suburban innocence. The buoyant voice of Doris Day sets off the cheer, promising she can't give us anything but love, baby. Here the lovers dish out as much duplicity as love.

Hence the gloss and brightness in every domestic scene and the affluence of the business and club settings. Indeed the film evokes the bright style of the master of '50s melodrama, Douglas Sirk, attended by his detachment and satiric bite. Of course the historic setting still implicates contemporary marriage as well. Marriage is marriage.

Sachs' second decision is to cast as narrator the slickest and most dishonourable character, Richard (the ever-suave Pierce Brosnan). That's like Iago getting the direct addresses to his audience, which immediately poisons the viewer's perspective upon the saintly Othello.

Initially Richard confirms his opposition to marriage. He ends up marrying the chirpy Kay (Rachel MacAdams) himself. To get there he has to betray his prosaic best friend Harry (Chris Cooper), who's planning to kill his wife Pat (Patricia Clarkson) so he can marry Kay. Richard also helps Pat conceal her illicit affair. Of course Richard serves mainly his own end, to win Kay for himself. Richard initiates the repeated bromide: "I'm not at all certain that one can build happiness upon the unhappiness of someone else" - especially not someone with our moral sense!

Despite being a war widow, Kay seems childlike in her wide eyes, glowing hair and smile, and her principal principle: "A woman needs to be loved, and that's true. But it's not the whole truth. She also needs somebody to love." That's the '50s sense of "the woman's place." She's as ripe for Richard's seduction as she was to salvage the lachrymose Harry.

The film ends on the neighbourhood's happy couples playing charades - an apt metaphor for the reduction of love and marriage to shallow performances. After all, as Richard confidently assumes: "Whoever in this room who knows what goes on in the mind of the person who sleeps next to you... please, raise your hand... I know you can't, not honestly." Finally, Pat and Harry move silently together cleaning up after the guests. Their harmony is as deep as ever, now built upon their respective abandoned passions. That shot - from outside, through the living room window - echoes the first: Harry's insubstantial reflection on his high office window, while his duplicitous best friend Richard introduces him and his tale.