A movie to leave at the altar
Anthony Benigno
Issue date: 3/14/08 Section: Film
It sounds like a recipe for black comedy: In the late 1940s, a successful businessman named Harry Allen (Chris Cooper) has fallen out of love with his wife Pat (Patricia Clarkson) in favor of a young widow named Kay (Rachel McAdams). But instead of putting Pat through the agony of divorce, merciful Harry decides to kill her.
If you're expecting "A Fish Called Wanda" hijinks, think again. "Married Life" starts slow, is never really funny and, except for a bright spot or two, doesn't even have the kind of love-is-a-battlefield sexual charisma of a throwaway like "Mr. & Mrs. Smith."
The problems start with director Ira Sachs, who made the 2005 indie "Forty Shades of Blue." The script, based on John Bingham's book "Five Roundabouts to Heaven," is solid but not great, but there is definitely unrealized potential in those pages. At its heart, "Married Life" is a dark comedy of errors both moral and logistical, but Sachs keeps piling on the melodrama, and whatever opportunities there might have been for laughs get lost in the execution.
This strategy also takes the fun out of the film's morally ambiguous characters. Harry's best friend, Ray, is the womanizer who narrates the film and eventually sets his sights on Kay, even while Harry professes his love for her. And yet, there's little about Ray that hints at his philandering other than the fact that he's played by Pierce Brosnan. Given that Brosnan is an old pro at embodying both the mystery (any of his James Bond outings) and sleaze ("The Matador") of seduction, it's a surprise that Ray isn't as believable a Lothario as he's supposed to be. In the film's effort to portray Ray as an unflappably smooth operator, he ends up seeming more like a square. Only in one scene (following an admittedly satisfying plot twist) does Sachs let Brosnan play Ray like the snake he is supposed to be. It is an enjoyable and ultimately all too brief glimpse of what might have been.
As for the other actors, McAdams is a luminous presence in her first role since 2005 and is genuinely affecting on screen, but the script keeps feeding her clunkers. Pat is initially established as one of the more sexually inclined characters, but this is addressed early on and never mentioned again. This seems like a missed opportunity on the filmmakers' part in denying Clarkson some of the juicier material. As for David Wenham (he played the one-eyed Spartan in "300"), he has established himself enough to warrant more than a paltry, one-scene cameo.
It is Cooper who rises above the rest and gives the film its one truly remarkable performance. Harry is a stoic sinner at the film's outset, but as the story wears on and his emotions begin to get the best of him, Cooper delivers an excellent portrait of a man coming apart at the seams. The numerous fake-outs and plot twists toward the film's end become progressively exhausting, but they do give Cooper the chance to act circles around everyone else on screen. He's a keeper, but he's also stuck in a movie that got away.
Anthony Benigno is a staff writer. E-mail him at film@nyunews.com.
If you're expecting "A Fish Called Wanda" hijinks, think again. "Married Life" starts slow, is never really funny and, except for a bright spot or two, doesn't even have the kind of love-is-a-battlefield sexual charisma of a throwaway like "Mr. & Mrs. Smith."
The problems start with director Ira Sachs, who made the 2005 indie "Forty Shades of Blue." The script, based on John Bingham's book "Five Roundabouts to Heaven," is solid but not great, but there is definitely unrealized potential in those pages. At its heart, "Married Life" is a dark comedy of errors both moral and logistical, but Sachs keeps piling on the melodrama, and whatever opportunities there might have been for laughs get lost in the execution.
This strategy also takes the fun out of the film's morally ambiguous characters. Harry's best friend, Ray, is the womanizer who narrates the film and eventually sets his sights on Kay, even while Harry professes his love for her. And yet, there's little about Ray that hints at his philandering other than the fact that he's played by Pierce Brosnan. Given that Brosnan is an old pro at embodying both the mystery (any of his James Bond outings) and sleaze ("The Matador") of seduction, it's a surprise that Ray isn't as believable a Lothario as he's supposed to be. In the film's effort to portray Ray as an unflappably smooth operator, he ends up seeming more like a square. Only in one scene (following an admittedly satisfying plot twist) does Sachs let Brosnan play Ray like the snake he is supposed to be. It is an enjoyable and ultimately all too brief glimpse of what might have been.
As for the other actors, McAdams is a luminous presence in her first role since 2005 and is genuinely affecting on screen, but the script keeps feeding her clunkers. Pat is initially established as one of the more sexually inclined characters, but this is addressed early on and never mentioned again. This seems like a missed opportunity on the filmmakers' part in denying Clarkson some of the juicier material. As for David Wenham (he played the one-eyed Spartan in "300"), he has established himself enough to warrant more than a paltry, one-scene cameo.
It is Cooper who rises above the rest and gives the film its one truly remarkable performance. Harry is a stoic sinner at the film's outset, but as the story wears on and his emotions begin to get the best of him, Cooper delivers an excellent portrait of a man coming apart at the seams. The numerous fake-outs and plot twists toward the film's end become progressively exhausting, but they do give Cooper the chance to act circles around everyone else on screen. He's a keeper, but he's also stuck in a movie that got away.
Anthony Benigno is a staff writer. E-mail him at film@nyunews.com.
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