MARRIED LIFE SONY PICTURES CLASSICS
Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey Karten
Grade: B
Directed by: Ira Sachs
Written By: Ira Sachs, Oren Moverman, from John Bingham’s book “Five Roundabouts to Heaven”
Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Chris Cooper, Patricia Clarkson, Rachel McAdams, David Wenham
Screened at: Dolby24, NYC, 12/13/07
Opens: February 22, 2008 “Married Life” may remind you of Joseph Kesselring’s play “Arsenic and Old Lace,” an American classic about an insane family living in Brooklyn whose central characters, two spinster aunts, believe they are doing charitable work by taking in lonely old men and poisoning them with strychnine, arsenic and cyanide. In their demented minds, the women are doing the victims a favor, literally putting them out of their solitary misery, not far off from what a gentle, middle-aged man, Harry Allen (Chris Cooper), believes he is doing when he plans to kill his wife Pat (Patricia Clarkson). See, Harry has been married for several years and is fond of Pat, but he has fallen for a much younger woman, Kay Nesbitt (Rachel McAdams), a head-turner who has had so many tragedies in her life that for her, Harry is an anchor. Because Harry in his narcissism believe divorce would cause his wife insufferable pain, killing her would be a merciful act. So goes Ira Sachs’s “Married Life, “adapted from John Bingham’s novel “Five Roundabout to Heaven,” a piece that takes place in 1949 when everyone chain smoked, wore ties, stood when women entered the room, and acted in a conventional manner—in public. What gives the film a special interest is a mixing of genres: it is part Douglas-Sirk style melodrama, part Hitchcockian thriller, part Oscar Wildean comedy of manners. Director Sachs pulls much of this off, using a low-key approach. No one emotes, there is no screaming at the discoveries of betrayal. The folks here are middle-class to the core and, as implied before, this is post-war 1940s conventional time in America. In a New York restaurant Harry confides to his best friend Richard Langley (Pierce Brosnan) that he intends to leave his wife Pat for a younger woman, Kay, little realizing that the caddish and handsomer Richard will have plans to steal Kay for himself. Harry is taking his time with a scheme to poison his wife to “spare her” of the pain of divorce little realizing that she has her own hanky-panky times in his absence. With Pierce Brosnan’s wry narration from time to time, we in the audience are made aware that the story is meant to be taken as a genre-bender, not at all seriously. While we are inclined to be sympathetic to Harry, realizing that he is getting on in years and not having much fun, what he does to one member of the family halfway through causes us to lose some of our affection for the man. Richard, womanizer though he may be, gains our compassion since he seems like the right person for the vivacious young woman who had recently suffered the loss of her husband. Rachel McAdams is made up to resemble Kim Novak and could easily play a Hitchcock character, though she looked better au natural in Claire Cleary in “Wedding Crashers,” while Patricia Clarkson stars as the person with whom we in the audience could most empathize —the gal next door. Yet Brosnan, in his narration, asks us to hold up our hands if we know what’s on the mind of the person with whom we share our bed. No one in my audience did. Marriage used to be thought of a union of two people, but those who have experienced this mystical and mysterious bond and others who have seen charming movies (like this one) know better. Rated R. 90 minutes. © 2007 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online
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